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    ‘Fun’ happened to be a dark, cruddy park in the middle of the night. Jean wondered what her parents would think of this, but then remembered that they had often encouraged her to stay out on weekends. If push came to shove, she was resorting to twisting their words as ammunition. It's not like she was doing anything bad, right? ...Just gallivanting off with a strange and terrifying boy at night. This thought made her bite her lip and sink lower into her swing. How in the world had she allowed him to take her from the pizza place? She'd been having enough fun there! With an exasperated sigh, she settled back and started to swing. Might as well go along with it, now that I'm here.
    Nikko was currently whooping and going on like a child on the playground. Who knew someone so terrifying had an inner child? Jean certainly hadn't. And though she appreciated seeing this rare side of him, her suddenly-pounding head didn't. It was just too much to take in.
    Who in their right mind would let this demon lead them off to a deserted park where anything could happen? And so was Jean Janis Parker painted the idiot. She skidded to a stop and resumed her slouch with a low groan.

    But the fun didn't stop there! Apparently, Nikko was on a roll and insisted that they “take a waltz about the lake.” It was only then that Jean noticed the monstrosity of a duck pond that half-surrounded the park. Really, where were all the people? It was Las Vegas, for Pete's sake! The pounding in Jean's head only strengthened every time she looked at Nikko, so she kept quiet, eyes cast downward, and walked slowly as Nikko skipped on ahead.
    “Honestly, I don't know why you haven't been here before,” he called over his shoulder, never missing a step in his skip. Jean wondered the same. It was a nice enough place, run-down in some areas but caution tape be damned. Decent writing place; stellar brainstorming place. Suddenly, she felt so stupid for never venturing outside for more than five minutes. What a silly notion. Jean ventured to look up at Nikko, but the angry white noise in her head made her eyes shoot back down. Why did he make her head hurt so badly? There was so much about him she wanted to question, but that sick feeling that she shouldn't even be acknowledging him made her question if she really wanted those answers.
    She plopped down right there on the sidewalk while the sass-monster that was Nikko kept skipping on ahead, oblivious. She needed to think this through. What the heck was she even doing here? Yes, she needed to get out more, but this wasn't exactly the way to start off doing so. Had she been so blinded by fear that she hadn't even thought to refuse and go home?
    In fact, that's what she was going to do right now: go home. She hoisted her bag full of pens and notebooks – she'd picked that up before he dragged her around? – and set off down the sidewalk back toward the park. It was eerily quiet this late at night; the wind caused small ripples down the lake and Jean's grey Vans scuffed softly on the pavement, but that was all the sound there really was. It was kind of frightening. This kind of silence really itched at Jean, only making that white noise in her head grow stronger. She picked up her pace, wanting to get home as quickly as possible.
    Sure, she felt just a bit bad about leaving Nikko here, but he seemed self-reliant enough. And she needed to get away from him. There was something very not-right here; and, for a rare moment of her life, Jean didn't want to find out what it was.
    That idea drove her into walking even faster, eyes cast downward and right hand gripping at her backpack's shoulder strap. After a few hasty steps bringing her ever closer to the park itself, she slammed into something solid and found herself suddenly sprawled on her butt. Jean almost had a mini heart attack when she looked up to find Nikko's sunken beady eyes far too up-close and personal. He was looming over her, bent at an impossible angle to shove his face in hers. It was almost cartoon-like and his hair was akin to that of an anime character, adding to the effect. His hands were on his hips and his face wore a comical pissed-off expression.
    Honestly, it was nice seeing this more playful side of Nikko; but, if she were really honest, it also terrified Jean. One would only have to watch a few thrillers to know that the innocent is most often deadly. Still... Those terrifying eyes seemed softer, his deadly pale thin lips were now pulled into a small smirk (he couldn't hold the scowl), and his whole presence was playful now rather than horrifying. Jean couldn't help but think this new Nikko was refreshing and to immediately feel guilty for even thinking of leaving.
    Realizing he was smiling now, Nikko immediately pulled a scowl again and crossed his arms, puffing to blow some of his shaggy hair out of his face. He straightened up and glared down his nose at Jean. “Oh, so you thought you’d just leave, huh? After I went through all that trouble to show you fun. Some show of gratitude.”
    This was the moment Jean realized she’d found her Rubicon. Usually she’d be frustrated and at the end of her rope and demand that he “take his ‘fun’ and shove it,” especially since this was Nikko Leonid, the most irritating and terrifying creature she’d ever had the displeasure of breathing the same air as. But she wasn’t. She didn’t. And all she felt was…guilt. She didn’t have time to process any of this raging mental conflict, though; because suddenly there was a hand thrust into her line of vision and a mental nagging that the proper etiquette was to grab it and haul herself off the dirty sidewalk. And that’s how she knew. That was the point, right there. She couldn’t just dip her foot in the river: it was either dive or run, grab his hand or go home with her tail between her legs. It was that simple. It was that terrible, that one tiny little thing determined her life onward. But she could feel it, and the journalist in her was practically screaming to “just snatch that frickin’ hand!”
    It was almost comical, how Nikko just waited patiently (albeit with a bit of diva spirit if that huff had any weight to it) while this soap opera life-pinnacle movie climax crap played out within the synapses of Jean’s brain. And in a moment the decision was made. Logic jumped ship, the journalist roared in victory, Jean grinned, and her fingers finally snatched the slender but stubby ones of the nightmare that had haunted her for years. As he hauled her up, Jean realized one surely-insignificant thing: from the moment she touched him, her headache had disappeared.
    Her Rubicon was freezing and deep and dark, but she was satisfied.


    Nikko knew a lot of undiscovered gems in town, all costing little or nothing. He even showed Jean how fun it could be to sneak into the drainage wash (to add to the illegal things she was now doing) near her neighbourhood after she told him where she lived (to add to the list of stupid things she had now done). Jean had always been scared of that place, all overgrown vines and rumours of hobos and news stories of skaters dying because they were attempting to make it a half pipe; but now she could certainly see the merit of it after they cut a bit through the overgrowth and Nikko’s dramatic courage rubbed off on her. Why had she been so stuck-up about all of this before? In fact, Nikko seemed to have that effect on her: all her predetermined misconceptions seemed to fade away as stupidity. It made her feel like complete rubbish, but all this was certainly proving something to her.

    She was definitely going to have to twist her parents’ words against them. Holy crapola, was she getting home late. Albeit on a not-school-night, but still a little too late to just say she’d lost track of time at the library following a lead, or some other studious-sounding excuse that had always been the truth before. Always. All lights were off, even the porch lamp, but none of that meant her dad wasn’t waiting ominously in the dark for her to creep inside and hope she got away with it, only to have him flick on the lamp and spin around in the recliner with a grim look marring his features. Yikes…
    Apparently, Nikko saw all this play out on her face, because he sniggered and stated rather than asked, in a very matter-of-fact way, “Never snuck out before, huh?” Like he’d done it so many times that sneaking back in was something effortless that Jean just wasn’t grasping the simplicity of. Okay, maybe she was reading far too much into one snigger and statement, but damnit! He had been making her feel like that for a while now. He’d apparently done a lot of things Jean would have never considered, as she grasped from their night of “This is what fun feels like.” And sure, okay, that may hold a bit of superiority over Jean’s very small list of ‘fun’ she’d ever had, but this was just ridiculous.
    “Okay, just take a deep breath and brace yourself for anything,” she puffed out and did just that. With a -- what she assumed was supposed to be -- reassuring thumbs up from Nikko, Jean softly slid her key into the lock and clicked it to the left. Thank goodness they had no pets – her mom was allergic – so she wouldn’t have to worry about them giving her away. Slowly, she stepped over the threshold, careful not to scuff her shoes because any little noise she made usually echoed far louder throughout her house’s open floor plan. Leaving the door open to avoid a long squeak, she tiptoed into the wide den to see if her fears were realized. There, just as she had predicted, the lamp clicked on, the recliner spun, and her dad’s put-on ‘you should know better’ face greeted her.
    “Young lady…” And there it was. The patronization had reared its ugly head and reveled in its triumph. Jean almost winced, but instead held herself high, braced for impact. “What exactly were you doing out so late?” Involuntarily, her eyes shot over to the clock. Ouch, it really was late. How had she stayed out that long? With Nikko, of all people? 4:36 was far too late for him to buy that she had been doing anything studious, but it never hurt to try, right?
    “I…got…reallyinvolvedinanewsstoryand… Well, you know me! Can’t leave ‘til every rock is overturned!” Okay, she sounded far too uppity for any of that to be taken seriously. Great, now her dad was going to think she’d gotten high. Good luck digging out of that one, genius. Just for good measure, she grinned in what she hoped was a ‘this is your li’l angel we’re talking about’ way, but probably only made her look even higher.
    “Jean Janis Parker…” he practically growled. She winced at the middle name usage. Even if that was her reporter name, his use of it was so not good. He didn’t have to say anymore. The truth was coming out now.
    Robed and slippered and half-asleep looking or not, her dad was not to be trifled with. Denny Lewis Parker was a man on fire right now and the very image of parental force. He was not to be trifled with.
    “I was out on the town with—” she blurted out, starting to gesture out the still-open door to the front lawn to point out Nikko, only to realize he’d evaporated. All colour drained from her face, Jean dropped her gesturing thumb. “Friends,” rolled slowly off her tongue and plopped to the floor.
    All at once, the façade slipped and her dad jumped up with a too-wide grin on his narrow face. “You have friends?!” And then she was trapped in a smothering hug and realizing exactly how wrong it had been to use that word. As she struggled to breathe within the mess of cotton around her, she decided one fateful thing: she really was friends with Nikko now, as weird as that sounded. As weird as that was. No matter how much she denied it, there was a pull toward him she’d been ignoring for years. Between fear and curiosity, she wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.

    Her father had finally realized she needed to sleep and had begrudgingly let her go to bed without further explanation. But now, this morning, she was facing an eerily wide-awake Denny Lewis armed with coffee and banana nut muffins and there would be no escape. Thank the heavens her mom was away on one of her many business trips, or she’d be facing an over-exuberant Penny Lane Parker (Jean’s grandparents had a unique sense of humour) as well and would have been hemmed in.
    In a roundabout way, she told him about her new friendship, very vaguely avoiding that he was both goth and male. Her father didn’t pry. He was happy enough in the fact that Jean finally had a social life, and that kind of scared her. Was he really more concerned with the fact that she was being social rather than who she was being social with? Had Jean really progressed so far into loneliness that her parents were desperate for her to have any friends?

    This haunted her the rest of the weekend, making her flip between a complete denial of her earlier revelation (This weekend changed nothing!) and deeply considering actually trying to bond with Nikko. She was right in the middle of the first stage when she heard an unfamiliar sound. It sounded like...a boiling pot...or a hot tub. But cartoony-like. What? Jean had been lounging on her bed, practising the foreign concept of relaxation, while she warred mentally; but now she rolled over to see her nightstand lighting up. What…? Oh, wait. Not her nightstand, her Blackberry. And on that lit-up screen was...a text? Jean rarely texted if she could avoid it. There was very little that couldn’t be done over the phone or over email, and those were more professional. Texting was so...barbaric. Email made far more sense to her. So that’s where that sound was coming from. She picked up the Blackberry and flipped through a few screens to view the message.
    One word: Yo
    But it wasn’t that that caught Jean’s attention. It was the sender. “YA BOI Nikko, semicolon P,” she read aloud. First of all, what the heck was that supposed to mean? Second, how did he get her number? And lastly, how was he in her contacts? I’m not answering. No way. This weekend changed nothing, she reiterated, but then watched in horror as her fingers typed out Hello there of their own accord. The journalist had won again.
    The Blackberry was flung across the room like a spider and not acknowledged until Monday morning.

    Nikko was acting weird. But then again, when was that not common? Of course, not weird as in ‘different from how he normally acted’ weird, but ‘acting exactly the same’ weird. The usual Nikko weird. He never once tried to spark a conversation, he glared at her all through class, and so on and so forth. He was as Nikko Leonid as ever...like this weekend had never happened.
    The more she tried to puzzle this out, the more that blasted headache pulsed in her skull -- the flavour of headache Nikko had left his brand on. Nevertheless, she stared right at Nikko the more he stared at her, no matter how much his stare pulsed against her temples.
    However, by the end of the day she was so addled and so choleric that everything was just angry white noise. She slammed her locker closed and leaned against it, trying to deep-breathe through this. Aron hurried by, sparing a sympathetic, if not nervous, smile over her way. She carefreely saluted him and tilted her head back against the cold steel, closing her eyes and relishing the contrast to her overheated scalp. The headache was reaching its peak, which, while extremely painful, meant it would pass soon. She listened to all the students pass, rowdy for a Monday, giggling and complaining and just making a whole helluva lot of racket. My word, do they ever shut up?! Pain flared in the right side of her skull as all noise blurred together into one big mess, growing louder and louderandlouderAND--
    OOF! Jean was off the locker and sprawling on her backside in record time. Her eyes sprung open as she hit the floor, sliding a bit, and caught a flash of black. The headache spiked severely.
    Off in a flash, Jean was at his heels as he took off through the heavy pushbar door. Huffing, she swung it open so forcefully there was a resounding snap when it bounced against its limit. Once through the door, she scoured the small porch above the parking lot. She was out for blood. When no target was found, she was about to search the lot when she felt hot breath on her ear. It was he.
    Jean froze, both literally and physically. All colour and energy drained from her while she stood in shock and mild terror. The breath sent an unwarranted crackle down her spine and her hair stood on end like she’d experienced a static shock.
    “Gotta keep up appearances, huh?” the far-too-familiar voice breathed. She could hear the wink in it, almost see him grinning sarcastically.
    By the time she’d recovered, the breath was gone from her ear and so was he.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

    ‘Fun’ happened to be a dark, cruddy park in the middle of the night. Jean wondered what her parents would think of this, but then remembered that they had often encouraged her to stay out on weekends. If push came to shove, she was resorting to twisting their words as ammunition. It's not like she was doing anything bad, right? ...Just gallivanting off with a strange and terrifying boy at night. This thought made her bite her lip and sink lower into her swing. How in the world had she allowed him to take her from the pizza place? She'd been having enough fun there! With an exasperated sigh, she settled back and started to swing. Might as well go along with it, now that I'm here.
    Nikko was currently whooping and going on like a child on the playground. Who knew someone so terrifying had an inner child? Jean certainly hadn't. And though she appreciated seeing this rare side of him, her suddenly-pounding head didn't. It was just too much to take in.
    Who in their right mind would let this demon lead them off to a deserted park where anything could happen? And so was Jean Janis Parker painted the idiot. She skidded to a stop and resumed her slouch with a low groan.

    But the fun didn't stop there! Apparently, Nikko was on a roll and insisted that they “take a waltz about the lake.” It was only then that Jean noticed the monstrosity of a duck pond that half-surrounded the park. Really, where were all the people? It was Las Vegas, for Pete's sake! The pounding in Jean's head only strengthened every time she looked at Nikko, so she kept quiet, eyes cast downward, and walked slowly as Nikko skipped on ahead.
    “Honestly, I don't know why you haven't been here before,” he called over his shoulder, never missing a step in his skip. Jean wondered the same. It was a nice enough place, run-down in some areas but caution tape be damned. Decent writing place; stellar brainstorming place. Suddenly, she felt so stupid for never venturing outside for more than five minutes. What a silly notion. Jean ventured to look up at Nikko, but the angry white noise in her head made her eyes shoot back down. Why did he make her head hurt so badly? There was so much about him she wanted to question, but that sick feeling that she shouldn't even be acknowledging him made her question if she really wanted those answers.
    She plopped down right there on the sidewalk while the sass-monster that was Nikko kept skipping on ahead, oblivious. She needed to think this through. What the heck was she even doing here? Yes, she needed to get out more, but this wasn't exactly the way to start off doing so. Had she been so blinded by fear that she hadn't even thought to refuse and go home?
    In fact, that's what she was going to do right now: go home. She hoisted her bag full of pens and notebooks – she'd picked that up before he dragged her around? – and set off down the sidewalk back toward the park. It was eerily quiet this late at night; the wind caused small ripples down the lake and Jean's grey Vans scuffed softly on the pavement, but that was all the sound there really was. It was kind of frightening. This kind of silence really itched at Jean, only making that white noise in her head grow stronger. She picked up her pace, wanting to get home as quickly as possible.
    Sure, she felt just a bit bad about leaving Nikko here, but he seemed self-reliant enough. And she needed to get away from him. There was something very not-right here; and, for a rare moment of her life, Jean didn't want to find out what it was.
    That idea drove her into walking even faster, eyes cast downward and right hand gripping at her backpack's shoulder strap. After a few hasty steps bringing her ever closer to the park itself, she slammed into something solid and found herself suddenly sprawled on her butt. Jean almost had a mini heart attack when she looked up to find Nikko's sunken beady eyes far too up-close and personal. He was looming over her, bent at an impossible angle to shove his face in hers. It was almost cartoon-like and his hair was akin to that of an anime character, adding to the effect. His hands were on his hips and his face wore a comical pissed-off expression.
    Honestly, it was nice seeing this more playful side of Nikko; but, if she were really honest, it also terrified Jean. One would only have to watch a few thrillers to know that the innocent is most often deadly. Still... Those terrifying eyes seemed softer, his deadly pale thin lips were now pulled into a small smirk (he couldn't hold the scowl), and his whole presence was playful now rather than horrifying. Jean couldn't help but think this new Nikko was refreshing and to immediately feel guilty for even thinking of leaving.
    Realizing he was smiling now, Nikko immediately pulled a scowl again and crossed his arms, puffing to blow some of his shaggy hair out of his face. He straightened up and glared down his nose at Jean. “Oh, so you thought you’d just leave, huh? After I went through all that trouble to show you fun. Some show of gratitude.”
    This was the moment Jean realized she’d found her Rubicon. Usually she’d be frustrated and at the end of her rope and demand that he “take his ‘fun’ and shove it,” especially since this was Nikko Leonid, the most irritating and terrifying creature she’d ever had the displeasure of breathing the same air as. But she wasn’t. She didn’t. And all she felt was…guilt. She didn’t have time to process any of this raging mental conflict, though; because suddenly there was a hand thrust into her line of vision and a mental nagging that the proper etiquette was to grab it and haul herself off the dirty sidewalk. And that’s how she knew. That was the point, right there. She couldn’t just dip her foot in the river: it was either dive or run, grab his hand or go home with her tail between her legs. It was that simple. It was that terrible, that one tiny little thing determined her life onward. But she could feel it, and the journalist in her was practically screaming to “just snatch that frickin’ hand!”
    It was almost comical, how Nikko just waited patiently (albeit with a bit of diva spirit if that huff had any weight to it) while this soap opera life-pinnacle movie climax crap played out within the synapses of Jean’s brain. And in a moment the decision was made. Logic jumped ship, the journalist roared in victory, Jean grinned, and her fingers finally snatched the slender but stubby ones of the nightmare that had haunted her for years. As he hauled her up, Jean realized one surely-insignificant thing: from the moment she touched him, her headache had disappeared.
    Her Rubicon was freezing and deep and dark, but she was satisfied.


    Nikko knew a lot of undiscovered gems in town, all costing little or nothing. He even showed Jean how fun it could be to sneak into the drainage wash (to add to the illegal things she was now doing) near her neighbourhood after she told him where she lived (to add to the list of stupid things she had now done). Jean had always been scared of that place, all overgrown vines and rumours of hobos and news stories of skaters dying because they were attempting to make it a half pipe; but now she could certainly see the merit of it after they cut a bit through the overgrowth and Nikko’s dramatic courage rubbed off on her. Why had she been so stuck-up about all of this before? In fact, Nikko seemed to have that effect on her: all her predetermined misconceptions seemed to fade away as stupidity. It made her feel like complete rubbish, but all this was certainly proving something to her.

    She was definitely going to have to twist her parents’ words against them. Holy crapola, was she getting home late. Albeit on a not-school-night, but still a little too late to just say she’d lost track of time at the library following a lead, or some other studious-sounding excuse that had always been the truth before. Always. All lights were off, even the porch lamp, but none of that meant her dad wasn’t waiting ominously in the dark for her to creep inside and hope she got away with it, only to have him flick on the lamp and spin around in the recliner with a grim look marring his features. Yikes…
    Apparently, Nikko saw all this play out on her face, because he sniggered and stated rather than asked, in a very matter-of-fact way, “Never snuck out before, huh?” Like he’d done it so many times that sneaking back in was something effortless that Jean just wasn’t grasping the simplicity of. Okay, maybe she was reading far too much into one snigger and statement, but damnit! He had been making her feel like that for a while now. He’d apparently done a lot of things Jean would have never considered, as she grasped from their night of “This is what fun feels like.” And sure, okay, that may hold a bit of superiority over Jean’s very small list of ‘fun’ she’d ever had, but this was just ridiculous.
    “Okay, just take a deep breath and brace yourself for anything,” she puffed out and did just that. With a -- what she assumed was supposed to be -- reassuring thumbs up from Nikko, Jean softly slid her key into the lock and clicked it to the left. Thank goodness they had no pets – her mom was allergic – so she wouldn’t have to worry about them giving her away. Slowly, she stepped over the threshold, careful not to scuff her shoes because any little noise she made usually echoed far louder throughout her house’s open floor plan. Leaving the door open to avoid a long squeak, she tiptoed into the wide den to see if her fears were realized. There, just as she had predicted, the lamp clicked on, the recliner spun, and her dad’s put-on ‘you should know better’ face greeted her.
    “Young lady…” And there it was. The patronization had reared its ugly head and reveled in its triumph. Jean almost winced, but instead held herself high, braced for impact. “What exactly were you doing out so late?” Involuntarily, her eyes shot over to the clock. Ouch, it really was late. How had she stayed out that long? With Nikko, of all people? 4:36 was far too late for him to buy that she had been doing anything studious, but it never hurt to try, right?
    “I…got…reallyinvolvedinanewsstoryand… Well, you know me! Can’t leave ‘til every rock is overturned!” Okay, she sounded far too uppity for any of that to be taken seriously. Great, now her dad was going to think she’d gotten high. Good luck digging out of that one, genius. Just for good measure, she grinned in what she hoped was a ‘this is your li’l angel we’re talking about’ way, but probably only made her look even higher.
    “Jean Janis Parker…” he practically growled. She winced at the middle name usage. Even if that was her reporter name, his use of it was so not good. He didn’t have to say anymore. The truth was coming out now.
    Robed and slippered and half-asleep looking or not, her dad was not to be trifled with. Denny Lewis Parker was a man on fire right now and the very image of parental force. He was not to be trifled with.
    “I was out on the town with—” she blurted out, starting to gesture out the still-open door to the front lawn to point out Nikko, only to realize he’d evaporated. All colour drained from her face, Jean dropped her gesturing thumb. “Friends,” rolled slowly off her tongue and plopped to the floor.
    All at once, the façade slipped and her dad jumped up with a too-wide grin on his narrow face. “You have friends?!” And then she was trapped in a smothering hug and realizing exactly how wrong it had been to use that word. As she struggled to breathe within the mess of cotton around her, she decided one fateful thing: she really was friends with Nikko now, as weird as that sounded. As weird as that was. No matter how much she denied it, there was a pull toward him she’d been ignoring for years. Between fear and curiosity, she wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.

    Her father had finally realized she needed to sleep and had begrudgingly let her go to bed without further explanation. But now, this morning, she was facing an eerily wide-awake Denny Lewis armed with coffee and banana nut muffins and there would be no escape. Thank the heavens her mom was away on one of her many business trips, or she’d be facing an over-exuberant Penny Lane Parker (Jean’s grandparents had a unique sense of humour) as well and would have been hemmed in.
    In a roundabout way, she told him about her new friendship, very vaguely avoiding that he was both goth and male. Her father didn’t pry. He was happy enough in the fact that Jean finally had a social life, and that kind of scared her. Was he really more concerned with the fact that she was being social rather than who she was being social with? Had Jean really progressed so far into loneliness that her parents were desperate for her to have any friends?

    This haunted her the rest of the weekend, making her flip between a complete denial of her earlier revelation (This weekend changed nothing!) and deeply considering actually trying to bond with Nikko. She was right in the middle of the first stage when she heard an unfamiliar sound. It sounded like...a boiling pot...or a hot tub. But cartoony-like. What? Jean had been lounging on her bed, practising the foreign concept of relaxation, while she warred mentally; but now she rolled over to see her nightstand lighting up. What…? Oh, wait. Not her nightstand, her Blackberry. And on that lit-up screen was...a text? Jean rarely texted if she could avoid it. There was very little that couldn’t be done over the phone or over email, and those were more professional. Texting was so...barbaric. Email made far more sense to her. So that’s where that sound was coming from. She picked up the Blackberry and flipped through a few screens to view the message.
    One word: Yo
    But it wasn’t that that caught Jean’s attention. It was the sender. “YA BOI Nikko, semicolon P,” she read aloud. First of all, what the heck was that supposed to mean? Second, how did he get her number? And lastly, how was he in her contacts? I’m not answering. No way. This weekend changed nothing, she reiterated, but then watched in horror as her fingers typed out Hello there of their own accord. The journalist had won again.
    The Blackberry was flung across the room like a spider and not acknowledged until Monday morning.

    Nikko was acting weird. But then again, when was that not common? Of course, not weird as in ‘different from how he normally acted’ weird, but ‘acting exactly the same’ weird. The usual Nikko weird. He never once tried to spark a conversation, he glared at her all through class, and so on and so forth. He was as Nikko Leonid as ever...like this weekend had never happened.
    The more she tried to puzzle this out, the more that blasted headache pulsed in her skull -- the flavour of headache Nikko had left his brand on. Nevertheless, she stared right at Nikko the more he stared at her, no matter how much his stare pulsed against her temples.
    However, by the end of the day she was so addled and so choleric that everything was just angry white noise. She slammed her locker closed and leaned against it, trying to deep-breathe through this. Aron hurried by, sparing a sympathetic, if not nervous, smile over her way. She carefreely saluted him and tilted her head back against the cold steel, closing her eyes and relishing the contrast to her overheated scalp. The headache was reaching its peak, which, while extremely painful, meant it would pass soon. She listened to all the students pass, rowdy for a Monday, giggling and complaining and just making a whole helluva lot of racket. My word, do they ever shut up?! Pain flared in the right side of her skull as all noise blurred together into one big mess, growing louder and louderandlouderAND--
    OOF! Jean was off the locker and sprawling on her backside in record time. Her eyes sprung open as she hit the floor, sliding a bit, and caught a flash of black. The headache spiked severely.
    Off in a flash, Jean was at his heels as he took off through the heavy pushbar door. Huffing, she swung it open so forcefully there was a resounding snap when it bounced against its limit. Once through the door, she scoured the small porch above the parking lot. She was out for blood. When no target was found, she was about to search the lot when she felt hot breath on her ear. It was he.
    Jean froze, both literally and physically. All colour and energy drained from her while she stood in shock and mild terror. The breath sent an unwarranted crackle down her spine and her hair stood on end like she’d experienced a static shock.
    “Gotta keep up appearances, huh?” the far-too-familiar voice breathed. She could hear the wink in it, almost see him grinning sarcastically.
    By the time she’d recovered, the breath was gone from her ear and so was he.