Kyon gave a tired sigh as he trudged up the hill leading to school as he did every morning. A little exercise wasn't a problem for him, but in summer climbing the hill to school was practically hellish. Kyon simply couldn't understand whose bright idea it was to build the school on top of the hill instead of somewhere else--maybe when the school had been built, people had more stamina, or maybe summer wasn't as hot.

"Hey, Kyon!" a voice interruped his bitter thoughts as he felt a hand clap on his shoulder. Turning his head slightly, a grinning face of Taniguchi came into view. "What's up!"

"You must be having a great day if you can smile through this heat..." Kyon grumbled in response. Taniguchi merely shook his head and laughed. "Come on, why do you always have to look on the bad side of things? It's a beautiful morning, the sun is shining, and..." he dropped his voice to a mutter--his grin became mischevious. "I have a proposal for you...a dare."

Kyon groaned inwardly, but otherwise he only sighed. "And what is this brilliant idea?"

Taniguchi's smirk widened; apparently he was under the impression that excitement was building up. "After school. You...have to enter the Literature Club Room and speak to the girl there!"

. . . . . .

"Are you serious?" Kyon pressed a palm to his forehead. "Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?"

"Not brave enough, eh?"

"To talk to a girl." Kyon looked at his friend with an annoyed look. "Fine, I'll take you up on this dumb idea."

After School That Day

Kyon was standing directly in front of a old door with peeling wood; a rusty, worn metal sign on the wall was inscribed with faded words: "Literature Club". Kyon sighed--why was he doing what that idiot Taniguchi had planned? That fool was probably buying into all that crap that people said about the poor girl, stuff about her being a gangster, other idiocies.

With a single motion, Kyon stepped forward, determined to just get this over with, and opened the door, and stepped in.

Yuki jumped as she saw the boy enter the room, she hadn't expected anyone to walk into that room she expected everyone to avoid her because 1) the rumor about her family and 2) her over-protective friend, the clubroom was the only time she could be by herself. "Um ca...can I help you?" She said trying to hide the scaredness in her voice. She loved to read and she thought after all the seinors left to focus on college and university application that she would be all by herself though she had heard some first years thinking of joining but Anna had scared them off.

'Wonder who this is?' Anna thought, not expecting anyone to come in really.

Kyon had had his response fully rehearsed in his mind. Hey, sorry to bother you, but my idiot of a friend Taniguchi put me up to this. Apparently he thinks coming into this room is supposed to be scary. Anyway, now that I've done it, sorry again for bothering you. I'll be on my way. And with that, he would have left. When he entered, however, he found himself unable to say what he had planned. He wasn't scared of the girl--even if the rumours about her family were true. There was just something strange, something about this girl sitting here all on her own, that made Kyon unable to say what he had planned.

"Er...hey," he scratched the back of his neck, a bit nervous. "Er, you don't happen to have, maybe, a sign up sheet for the Literature Club?"

Yuki looked at him as if somthing was wrong with him but she just turned to the bookshelf took off a sheet handed it to him and said "I'm sorta suprised someone like you would want to sigh up for this club. NOT that you...you can't join I just mean I half expected you to leave insdently...WAIT I mean...I mean". She went red with embarressment she half expected him to just walk out of the room and then she'd hear all the rumors tomorrow like that she had been stalking him and stuff like that but yet he just stood there.

Kyon felt her eyes boring into his; her expression seemed to indicate for all intents and purposes that she thought he was...'off' somehow. And I probably am. He thought to himself. Why am I even doing this? As if operating by itself his body moved forward and took the sheet she had held out to him. He then removed a pen from the chest pocket of his uniform's shirt and then sat down at the table in the room, and began to fill out the form slowly, as if considering every question carefully. He looked up at her when she spoke. "Someone like me?" he asked. "...does that mean I seem like the kind of guy who doesn't like to read?" Kyon didn't hate reading, but he didn't spend a lot of time doing it either. He read whatever and whenever the mood struck him to do so.

Yuki looked at him "I..I didn't...I didn't mean to insult you it's just I've seen you in class and with your friends you just don't seem like the type to go home and pick up a book."

Kyon gave a slightly bitter smile. "Hey, don't get all flustered about it. I can see why I wouldn't seem to be the type to dive into books when I'm just lazing around with those guys." He held back to prevent himself from mentioning how he thought Taniguchi and the rest of them were a bunch of fools. "Anyway..." he stood up and held out the completed form, still wondering just what the hell he was doing.

Yuki took the piece of paper "Well if your doing this because you actually want to join the next meetings tomorrow after school, however if only doing this because of a dare don't bother coming at all." With that Yuki went and sat back down at her book and started to read again.

Kyon nodded. "Right then...see you then, I guess," he turned and moved to exit the room. He hesitated for a moment, as his hand wavered midair before the doorknob. Then, he sighed and then opened the door, and left.

He walked down the empty hall towards the main school area, where Taniguchi was waiting, a huge grin plastered across his face. "So you actually did it!" he said in an overly excited voice.

"Yes, I did it. I signed up for the Literature Club."

Taniguchi's grin gave way to wonder. "That wasn't part of the dare!"

"Nope, it wasn't," Kyon replied, and he began walking down the hill towards home.

Yuki sat in the room until the sky went ornage, as she finished her book there was a knock on the door she knew it was her pick up and without realizing it she put kyon's apilcation into her bag, came out of the school got into the limo and drove to her house.

Emmy flipped open her cell phone and punched in Yuki's number.
She knew someone checked her line, and there was another person tapping into the conversation, but Emmy was mostly used to it by now.
"Yuki! Hi! It's me!" She said swiftly and excitedly, starting to pace her room.
If Yuki wanted .. She could come over ..
"Want to come over? At my house? Like, at four?" She said again, just as fast.

Yuki knew why Emmy was going so fast. "Emmy, I'm sorry but I can't today I have a family meeting tonight so I gotta go, I'm sorry, bye." With that she hung up the phone.

Emmy sighed disappointedly. Busy, again, huh.
She tucked her phone in her pocket and flopped on her bed, thinking incoherent thoughts as she grew more tired. It wasn't that late .. Ah, well.
She fell asleep then, as the dreamy blue of the day gave way to the indigo of night.

Hara Kojima, the leader of the Hara Mafia and father of Hara Yuki, crossed his arms and legs as he leaned back in his chair. He wasn't a particularly large man, neither fat nor tall, but his deathly glare behind frameless glasses and serious expression made him seem much more intimidating than he really was. One could say he was handsome, though in the face of his murderous glare one tended to forget that. Even at home, he was outfitted in a spotless, handsome black suit, so posh and clean that it looked as if it had never been touched before. He swept a sleeve back to glance at an expensive metal watch, and then sneered as if the clock had greatly offended him; he then returned to the newspaper in his hands.

He looked back up as Yuki entered the house. "Welcome home," he said in a flat tone, as if he hardly cared, not even putting down his newspaper. And then it began: "Anything interesting at school?" he lowered the newspaper slightly and turned his interrogative glare to her.

Yuki knew her father didn't really care but she told him anyway "Well I'm pretty much avoided thanks to Anna, but a guy is thinking of joining the Lituarcy club". She blushed a little as she said how could she not be happy, Someone besides Anna and Emmy were talking to her at school.

Kojima hesitated for a moment, and then continued. "A guy at school, eh..." he grunted, his eyes remaining on Yuki. That was a bad sign. Typically by now his eyes would have returned to the paper. He was definitely interested in this 'guy'. "Nice guy, is he?" Kojima continued in his gruff voice, sounding interested.


Meanwhile, Kyon was at home, lying on his bed, a book in his hands. Something about meeting the girl in the literature club room made him want to pick up a book as soon as he got home, and he had been absorbed ever since. Had reading always been this fun? He couldn't remember a time when he was this into the book. It wasn't even one of those great classics, it was just one of those huge science fiction books, but Kyon was immersed. He identified with every character, read deeply into every subplot. After reading for almost two hours, he set aside the book for a moment, and sat up on his bed, thinking about the past day.

Yuki looked at her father, he had never payed that much attetion to one of there conversations "Yes he is, I wonder if he went home and read hmm oh well I'd better go do my homework." she was mega flushed.

"Right..." Kojima's eyes narrowed suspiciously on his daughter. "Very well. Go do your homework," Kojima returned to his newspaper. He saw no need to help his daughter--of whom he was quite rightly proud of for being very intelligent. He was, however, interested in this new guy--he would have to speak to Anna about that.

Meanwhile, Kyon was now idling around the house, taking a break from his sudden frenzy of reading. His parents were out, and so it was only him and his little sister--who, thankfully for Kyon, was distracted playing some video game in her room. Normally when his little sister was bored she would just unleash hell on him and annoy the crap out of him.

His mind went back to the girl from the Literature Club Room. He seemed to remember with perfect clarity entering the room to see her sitting there with a book. Wait, why do I keep thinking of this?! he thought frantically to himself. I don't want to end up like that idiot Taniguchi, seeing romance everywhere. Nevertheless, he could not deny he was looking forward to the meeting tomorrow...

Emmy opened her eyes. "Huh. It's still night..?" she peered through her window, debating whether it was early morning or early night. "Hm."
She paced her room, thinking about what Yuki was doing .. A meeting or something? Maybe she was done.
Emerson sighed and felt like seeing her friend again. But that would be rude .. Right?

"Mom, I'm going out." She called to whoever was there, slipping on a navy blue jacket and shutting the door behind her without a word. She set off into the confusing network of houses and stores, her feet guiding her instinctually through the maze that was home. She stopped across the street from some sort of teen .. Modern .. Frozen yogurt shop..?
She entered and thought about taking some friends here .. Perhaps Yuki would like to go. Suddenly, Emmy's phone felt heavy in her back pocket ..

Yuki sat there doing here homework, then she heard the clock go *Coco coco* "Oh woah look at the time I better hurry to bed, I got a meeting tomorrow". As she said that she went flush with embaressment. "We..Well be..better hurry to bed. She flopped down on her bed and went to bed.

Kyon woke up the next morning feeling the way he felt every morning: miserable. As he groggily lifted himself from his bed, hesitant to leave the soft, addictive warmth of the covers, he could only question why, why, why was it so difficult to sleep at night, and yet so difficult not to sleep in the morning? It seemed to annoy him to no end.

As he stood in the bathroom brushing his teeth next to his little sister, who was doing the same thing like a clone of Kyon, he remembered the meeting today, in the Literature Club Room. Should be interesting... was all his sleepy mind could manage for the moment. When he was all done with his teeth and face, he slowly changed into his uniform and walked out the door into what anyone besides Kyon would call a beautiful, fresh sunny day; to him, it was just too hot and too bright.

Thus he passed most of the school day; he eventually became more active as the sleepiness wore away. After school ended, he found himself walking towards the Literature Club Room; without a thought, he entered the room and threw a greeting into it, "Good afternoon," he said as he placed his backpack on one of the chairs.

Yuki had been looking forward to this all day "Oh good afternoon, well what we usually do during meetings is say what book we reading, who the author is and say if it's a good book and why." Yuki knew all this thanks to the senoirs. "Would you like to go first or should I?"

"Fair enough," Kyon sat at one of the chairs. "I think I'll go first." He dug into his backpack and pulled out a book. "Well, you've probably already read this book, to be honest. It's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams...yeah. It's a pretty popular science fiction book, as far as I know. I thought it was a pretty good book, since it was pretty hilarious at times, but also had an interesting plot with very captivating characters. All in all, probably the best science fiction book I've read until now." He tried to think of something more to say, but that really summed it up: comedic moments, interesting plot, awesome characters. "Er--what do you have?"

Yuki loved listening to someone else point of view on books "Oh right, well a while back i started the gallaghar girls series by Ally Carter I am on the second book called Cross my heart and hope to spy. Much better then the first book this is more about the academy and what they do at it the characters in this are captivating and there is a relantinship between Cammie and Zach is amazing it's impossible to descride in such a short amount of time." Yuki didn't know what his reaction would be.