Hi, As you saw from the summary this is co-written by Red Wolf Goddes. She wrote the idea and told me to write in a long one-shot so ta-da! We have one long one-shot! Everyone is 14 but Yumi is still in a higher grade them then so still like the original only Jeremie and Aelita are older and Ulrich and Odd have both had their 14th birthday! Ok? good. Marie is my own character and is only mentioned a couple of times anyway.

I looked over at my small group of friends from my classroom window and I sighed inwardly. I just feel like something is missing in my life lately and the feeling just wouldn't budge.

I don't really think anyone has noticed how quiet I've grew except maybe Ulrich but Ulrich notices what everyone is doing so I shouldn't feel flattered by his concerned looks or his gentle smiles. I presume Sissy is glad that I've become quiet so she grab the attention of Ulrich.

Jeremie and Aelita are blissfully happy with one another and sorting the Lyoko troubles out. And Odd, well lets just say that everyone in the world could be depressed and he would still go on being his mad self.

"Yumi, class ended a couple of minutes ago, you done spacing?" William practically yelled poking my side.

I looked up angrily at him before grabbing my bag and storming out the room.

I jogged up to my friends and sat down on the bench next to everyone's bags. I tore my gaze away from Ulrich's notepad, to which I could see Ulrich's scribble but also a heart with someone's name in it but his homework was covering the name, and saw Ulrich and Odd kicking a ball around and Jeremie and Aelita on the laptop looking serious.

I felt the urge to swiftly move the homework out the way, just the see a bit of the name and just as I was about to a shrill voice rang out.

"ULRICH, DEAR!" Sissy screamed out to him.

"Sissy will you just leave me alone! I am not your Ulrich dear and never will be, get used to it" Ulrich moaned.

"But Ulrich honey, obviously your darling Yumi has given up, she's so quiet which is lovely for a change. I mean, come on, the hottest guy in school wanting to date a Japanese gothic girl, it just isn't realistic"

I didn't even bother defend myself; this was an awkward enough subject. I didn't even look up when she called me ugly. I supposed it was because, at that moment, I believed her. Apart from interests from Ulrich, Theo, and William no-one else has looked at me as girlfriend material.

Theo was now with some girl called Marie and William had gone off with Emily. Ulrich well lets just say I'm starting to have serious doubts about his feelings towards me.

I subconsciously heard Ulrich sticking up for me, saying that Sissy needs to look in the mirror and then she'll see that I'm far prettier than her.

I'm flattered but I do think that he's just being polite and nice to his friend.

I heard Sissy stomping away and the next thing I knew was that Ulrich had sat down next to me.

"Are you alright Yumi? You haven't been acting yourself lately and you didn't stick up for yourself just"

I looked up at him sadly but was saved from answering him, thanks to the bell announcing lessons. I awkwardly smiled at him and left to my next class.

I knew he was watching me. I could feel his gaze on my retreating back. I didn't turn back, I wanted to but I didn't.

I now knew that he was concerned about me which caused me great embarrassment.

That day passed on without any further interrogation, Ulrich seemed to be letting me be. I knew he wouldn't for long but I enjoyed it while I could. I did want help but I wanted to know what the problem was first. I wanted to know what was missing and I just couldn't work it out.

NEXT DAY

As I walked into the school gates, I felt a hand grab my arm. I turned to face the person to only find out that it was Ulrich. That rest lasted long, I thought sarcastically.

"You're early" he commented while walking me towards the fields.

"Yeah, wanted to get away from Hiroki, he's learning new ways to bug me" I replied.

Ulrich laughed slightly.

"You didn't answer my question yesterday" he stated.

I gulped. I knew it was coming but that didn't mean I was ready for it. I think I'm less ready to answer that question than I was yesterday, if that's even possible.

Ulrich stopped and turned to look at my lost expression.

"What's a matter, Yumi?" He asked me gently.

Before I had a chance to answer we heard giggling coming from a nearby bush. Ulrich gave me a confused look which I returned.

"Who's there?" Ulrich shouted in the bush's direction. The giggling stopped and William and Emily came out the bush looking rough.

"Oh" Was Ulrich's only word.

William gave him a shifty grin and winked at me.

Emily grabbed his hand and they ran off laughing furiously.

"That was..." Ulrich started.

'A good distracter' I thought but didn't dare say it.

"Weird?" I finished for him after he looked at a complete loss of words.

Ulrich nodded slowly.

"Come on, let's eat" And I rushed off to the cafeteria.

I could hear Ulrich following me and eventually his sped past me.

"UNFAIR, YOU'RE A BETTER ATHLETE THAN ME!" I yelled after him.

I panted as I took a seat at our table.

"Water?" Ulrich offered me, smirking madly at me.

I took it and greatly drank it down in one.

He passed me a small note before he was called away for soccer practice.

I read it with surprise and dread.

It read:

You may have been able to change the subject this morning but it doesn't mean I've forgot. Meet me after school at my tree please; I wanna know what's wrong with you. You're my best friend and I won't let you go through anything alone.

Love,

Ulrich

How could you possibly explain to someone what was wrong with you when you yourself don't know?

It's impossible.

I quickly wrote a reply agreeing to meet him and handed it to Odd who would see him before me.

"Oh a love note is it now?" Odd teased before I playfully slapped him across the face.

"Just give it him, see you later"

I didn't see Ulrich again that day until our arranged meeting. Before I made myself known I watched and listened to him. He was singing gently in German, he looked so relaxed with his head lolled back on the tree and his eyes closed gently. I feel like walking away and leaving him in his own world that he spends so much time in but I didn't, I knew he wouldn't appreciate that so I walked to him and coughed gently. He immediately snapped his eyes open and stopped singing. He blushed.

"Um sorry" he muttered.

"No, don't, the singing was peaceful, tranquil and relaxing something which none of us have experienced in a long time with X.a.n.a. Thank God for the break he is giving us, 'eh?"

Ulrich nodded slightly and brought out his workbook.

"I thought maybe we could just hang out, do homework, and have a laugh and stuff?"

"Err yeah sure, why not?" I agreed surprised at the lack of questioning.

Ulrich and I left one another a couple of hours later and I found myself relaxing once more in his company. We had friendly chats; did our homework; had a martial arts fight; brought ice-cream and just enjoyed one another's company.

At one point I thought Ulrich was analysing me but the thought had diminished as soon as it came.

NEXT DAY

I entered the school gates and felt a familiar grasp.

I didn't need to turn around to know who it was so I just followed my green-clad friend to the fields that he was regularly on with his soccer and his thinking.

He sat down and followed suit.

"I want to help you and I think I know how to now" he announced not looking at me.

"How are you going to help me if you don't know what's wrong?" I asked him quietly.

"Do you know what's wrong?" he asked me looking at me for the first time.

I shook my head.

"I think I do so let me help you"

I could feel that if I asked him what he thought was wrong with me; I wouldn't get an answer so I didn't even bother asking. I considered his offer while looking over at Theo and Marie who were holding hands and giving each other sweet kisses.

"I don't know why I'm agreeing to this but ok, you can try to help if you know all" I sighed but added my own snide comment in.

Ulrich raised his eyebrow to me but smiled nonetheless.

"Secret dates now!" We heard Odd laughed loudly before sitting down next to us.

"Hate to break it to you Romeo and Juliet but lessons are about to start an Ulrich you had to see Mr. Coleman like ten minutes ago." Odd informed him with complete calmness.

I looked over at Jeremie and Aelita who were laughing at something but was also holding hands but the next thing I knew I saw Odd rolling down the hill we were sitting at the top at. The occasional 'Ulrich, you're dead' could be heard among the banging and rolls.

I burst out laughing and ran off to lessons saying a rushed goodbye to Ulrich.

I looked back up at the top of the grass hill and saw no-one there. Ulrich must have rushed off himself to meet up with his history teacher. I glanced at where Odd was standing and saw him still there trying to remove all the grass off his purple clothing. I laughed again and walked off to my science class.

Ulrich hung around me all day which I didn't mind it was just that Odd's teasing grew worse, which caused everyone to believe that we were together. Ulrich sorted the situation out though by threatening Odd and he went round telling everyone that Ulrich and Yumi weren't together, everyone except Sissy and her crew.

Ulrich walked me home that day and it was a good thing he did or else I could have been in hospital! I crossed a road without looking and a car was speeding through, Ulrich had pulled me back faster than lightning. I tripped as he pulled me back quickly and my head landed full force in his chest. He had grown a couple inches taller than me so I was able to look up at him, smiling warily. I was aware that he still had his arms wrapped around my waist and I blushed.

"You ok?" he asked gently

"Yeah, I'm ok just you know..." I struggled to go on.

"Shook up?" He suggested

I looked up at him. He was talking about the near miss with the car and she felt more shook-up being in his arms.

"Come on lets get you home"

He put his arms protectively around my shoulders and continued walking me home.

"You ok? You've hardly spoke a word" he asked me hugging me.

"Yeah I'm fine, honest" I stuttered like an idiot.

"You sure?" he asked me again

"Positive!" I laughed slightly before thanking him and rushing into my home.

NEXT DAY

I waited patiently for Ulrich to come and pick me up like he said he was going to and right on time, my doorbell rang.

I answered the door, said a rushed goodbye to my parents, told Hiroki to stay out of my room and left with Ulrich.

We walked in a comfortable silence to school. Every so often I would think that Ulrich was side-glancing at me but his eyes would linger on me longer than a simple glance would.

As we entered the school gates, a shrill voice could be heard ringing through the air calling Ulrich's name.

We carried on walking until she caught with us.

"Ulrich, honey, why do you hang out with this loser?"

"I don't hang out with losers it's why I don't hang out with you" Ulrich sighed.

"Your only showing off because Yumi's here as soon as she is out of sight, your gaze will be upon me and my beautiful figure that you know you want to have fun with in bed" She remarked seductively.

I raised my eyebrow. Ulrich shuddered.

"Great, thank a lot Sissy for putting me off my breakfast"

"Oh Ulrich, you know you want me in bed"

"Sissy I'd rather have Kiwi in bed with me" Ulrich chuckled.

"You'd soon take Yumi to bed wouldn't you?" Sissy argued.

"I'd rather take an attractive nice girl to bed than a horrible, ugly backstabber to bed thank you very much"

I blushed while Sissy stormed off.

"Sorry about that, Yumi" he muttered

"Forget it, I already have" I laughed and raced him to the cafeteria.

I walked over to the gang who were lying in the fields at lunch. I lay down next to Ulrich who winked at me. I blushed again.

"Odd you feeling alright, your not in the cafeteria with all the food"

"Its vegetable and curry pie, I don't want to be in there, besides I'm going to the all you can eat buffet tonight with Sam, gotta make room!" Odd laughed.

I rolled my eyes and told him to have a good time tonight with Sam. I noticed Ulrich look up at me at my remark but I continued eating my packet of crisps that I had brought.

When the gang had left me and Ulrich alone, he put his magazine away and stared up at me. I followed his example and stared right back at him.

He leaned into me and I did the same to him. We closed our eyes until...

"ULRICH DEAR!"

We moved away quickly.

"Ulrich, I just stopped you making the biggest mistake of your life, how are you going to thank me?" She said plonking herself down next to him.

"Well first, I'm going to move and Yumi will follow me, then I'm gonna go to Jim and tell him about those clothes of his that you burned to keep yourself warm during the power cut and you wanna know what's next?" Ulrich reported angrily.

Sissy looked dumbstruck but nodded her head shakily.

"Then I'm going to make you date Herb for two whole months unless you want your father to know what you said to me this morning, deal?"

Sissy closed her eyes in frustration but finally agreed through gritted teeth.

"Good, phase one is about to happen, phase two will happen in about two minutes and well your end of the deal will start as soon as you find Herb"

He stood up, helped me up and walked away, holding my hand. I blushed but continued.

He didn't let go of my hand until we found Jim. Ulrich told him what had happened with his clothes, then we walked off to his and Odd's dorm.

"That was actually funny with Sissy!" I chuckled.

Ulrich smiled sadly.

"What's up?" I asked him. He shook his head.

An announcement was then made over the loudspeaker:

"Afternoon lessons have been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances; day students may stay with their boarding friends if they wish to do so"

Both Ulrich and I knew what to expect and sure enough in two minutes flat, Odd, Jeremie and Aelita entered the dorm.

The only thing we didn't see was the pillow fight they started up, but it didn't matter because we won against them in the end!

At five, Ulrich walked me home. We walked in silence but took another route, instead of passing the park we went down by the river.

"Wanna sit for a bit? You parents aren't expecting you until six anyway"

I nodded and sat down next to him. We were in the shade of a large willow tree. I could feel myself beginning to tire so without thinking I placed my head on Ulrich's shoulder.

He didn't even move. After a couple of moments of rest, I realised what I was doing and jerked my head up.

"Sorry" I mumbled while blushing furiously.

"Don't be, I didn't mind"

We watched the little children feeding the ducks with the occasional swan interfering.

My mind was always on the fact of what I had just done. It just felt so natural to do it, that I didn't even bother thinking about it. I could have cursed myself which in very fact I was doing.

Ulrich noticed how quiet I had grown and decided to call it a break.

"Come on, we'll take a slow walk back to yours" he offered me his hand to help me up but he didn't let go of my hand as we walked to back to my house.

As we walked back, I was staring round at all the people in the streets to see if they noticed me and Ulrich holding hands but no-one batted an eyelid.

"Don't be too surprised no-one is paying attention to us Yumi, we aren't celebrities you know" Ulrich teased.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

I saw a bit of restraining going in Ulrich's eye at my action and wondered just what he was restraining against doing.

"Can you believe what Sissy said this morning?" I asked him.

"I know it was a bit of a shocker, only 14 and getting straight into that. That's what I like about you as well the fact that your so natural and aren't in anyway at all a slag"

I blushed and thanked him.

"So how's your problem feeling?" he asked me.

"Still dunno what I'm missing" I sighed

"It's an improvement, before you didn't know what your problem was" he pointed out to me.

I was dumbstruck, I hadn't even registered that I knew what my problem was a bit more.

"Oh yeah, I guess. So you did?" I asked him

"I sure do, 'coz I'm going through exactly the same thing as you"

"So what are you missing?" I enquired

"Same thing as you" he winked at me

Before I had a chance to ask what it was, he told me I was home.

I smiled knowingly at him and said goodbye before entering my home.

I ran upstairs to have a seriously good think about the actions that had took place today.

Firstly he was glancing at me constantly

Secondly he complimented me in front of Sissy

Thirdly the constant winks

Fourthly staring at me intently

Then the near kiss

Us holding hands but never letting go until we had to

He didn't move when I placed my head on his shoulder and even said he didn't mind.

The restraining in his eye when I stuck my tongue out at him

More compliments

I always knew Ulrich thought of me as more than a friend, I think, but he was showing it more intensely lately. He confused me as well by saying we had exactly the same problem. This was really causing me to have a headache.

NEXT DAY

I didn't give Ulrich a chance to get to my door this morning; in fact I walked halfway there myself. He was quite surprised but nonetheless he smiled at me.

"Are you ok?" he asked me while holding my hand.

"Yeah, never felt better" I proclaimed

He chuckled.

"Figured out what you're missing?" he asked trying to find the reason of my happiness.

"No, not even a clue, don't care though 'coz your gonna solve that for me, aren't you?" I asked confidently.

"No, not anymore, I've done all I can for you except one thing which I'll tell you in the near future when I've figured some stuff out"

I turned to face him as we entered the school gates.

"What do you mean you've done all you can?"

"I've shown you all I can and you've responded to it as well, I wish I could say but I'm still unsure of some stuff, see you later, I'll still walk you home tonight"

I couldn't believe what Ulrich was doing. First he helps me, and then says he's done his bit. Some friend he turned out to be. I started paying attention to our Health and Social class which just might have been the best thing I ever did. Today Mrs Mckenzie was teaching about relationships as in all types; family, friends, boy/girlfriends.

She told us a story about her friend, Eliza, who helped her and then said that she would have to help herself then and it turned out that she had given her enough help for her to realise the true situation of her problem and how to solve it.

I soon realised that that was exactly what Ulrich had done; helped me help myself. At break, I didn't go out to meet the gang I went to the library instead to think through my problem and how Ulrich had helped.

He says he's helped as much as he can without saying something.

He says we both have the same problem, that we're missing the same thing in our lives.

So what do we both have in common?

We both hate Sissy

We both know about Lyoko

We both hate our families

We both have the same friends near enough

We both are single

We both have a crush on each other

I heard hushed giggling in the corner and saw William with Emily sniggering over some image in a book or other, they were holding hands and sitting so closely that if they tried to move together more, Emily would practically be on Williams lap.

I was so caught up in watching the happy couple that I didn't notice that a freshman was trying to get my attention until he closed a book hardly in front of my face.

"Oh sorry, what did you want?" I asked kindly knowing that freshmen were easily intimated

"I have a note for you, bye" the boy ran off after giving me the note. I opened the note up and read:

Yumi,

If you still cant figure out what is missing in your life then here is a clue. Every time you see a couple, I see a longing in your eye as if you wish to be part of a relationship like this. I also have that longing Yumi. We are both missing love. Every time you see a couple or hear about this, the longing appears in your eyes or your voice. I know both Theo and William let you down but there are others who like you as more than a friend, you just gotta find them is all! Love,

Ulrich.

I was missing love? Yeah, that made sense. And now I realise what all the looks were from Ulrich when I was looking at couples or talking to Odd about him and Sam. It totally made sense. The an alarm went off in my head when I realised something, Ulrich had said he was missing the same thing a me which meant he was missing love too, he had confirmed it in his note.

Something clicked in my head at the point when I realised what had happened over the past couple of days and I knew what I was going to do about it.

Ulrich met me outside my last class and silently we began to walk to my house.

I could tell Ulrich didn't know what to expect because he was keeping his eyes down, focused on the ground as we walked. I felt, at that point, that he wished he had never sent that note, but I'm glad that he did or I would never have had the courage to do what I was going to do before we departed.

Our walk seemed to take longer than usual, maybe it was because it was in silence. Whatever it was due to, it sure made the tension thick.

I looked around when Ulrich stopped and realised that we had got back to mine, my last thought must have made me space out.

"See you tomorrow?" Ulrich asked finally speaking.

"No" I replied smiling. He looked at me confused.

I leaned into Ulrich and whispered into his ear:

"Thanks for helping" I leaned back out and saw a confused Ulrich, I giggled and prepared for what I was about to do.

I leaned in quickly and kissed him passionately. I could feel that he was shocked but I felt him relax and kiss me back just as passionately and with hunger. His tongue begged my lips for entrance into my mouth, I happily agreed and soon a battle of the tongues was in full swing.

We had to part when the need for air was too great but it was done reluctantly from both of us.

Ulrich was smirking wickedly and I knew I was too.

"So see you tomorrow?" Ulrich asked.

"I told you the answer to that one before; no"

He looked at me confused once more.

"You're taking me to the movies tonight" I stated.

Ulrich laughed.

"Pick you up at seven?" I nodded and winked at him before turning around to go inside my room. I turned back around to find him starting to cross the road.

"Oh and Ulrich?" I yelled

He turned back around and looked at me smiling sweetly.

"I love you"

His smile couldn't get any bigger but then again neither could mine after his reply.

"I love you too, always have and always will"

Please review! And thank Red Wolf Goddess too, without her this wouldnt be possible!