For a period of about twenty seconds, our group stood in the center of my room, staring with either pride (in Kimi's case), mild amusement (in everyone else's case), or utter horror (this was my case) at the colorful sea of plushies that had been strewn across the carpet and furniture, creating a tie-dyed nightmare that I would undoubtedly have to clean up later.

To no one's surprise, Kimi broke the silence with a loudly-announced "I'm bored!" which startled Ikuto out of his catnap and caused him to fall off my bed with a rather undignified yelp. At the same time, my very thin patience snapped, resulting in a loud groan of annoyance and an epic facepalm.

"I seriously hate all of you," I mumbled darkly, leering at the group of delinquents through the spaces between my fingers as the creepy purple aura started to seep out. "I swear, I'm going to plot each of your individual murders and kill you off one by one, then set your bodies on fire and pour your ashes into a large bucket of acid and then bring you all back and do it all over again and—" I stopped talking when a plushie whatzit of some kind smacked me in the face. Spluttering with rage, I pointed an accusing finger at Kimi, who had launched the puffy projectile and was now standing a few feet away, staring at me in annoyance. After stuttering a few nonsensical sentence fragments that had the potential to give any English teacher or literate person within a five mile radius a heart attack, I finally took a deep breath, which was expelled in the single, loud "WHY?" that followed.

Rolling her eyes, the brunette flicked her hair behind her and gave me a nasty stare. "Don't use run-on sentences," she growled. "Every time you speak with improper grammar—"

"Yeah, yeah, we know. A gay baby is born," Ikuto butted in, recovering nicely from his earlier fall. "How do you think we ended up with Hotori?"

Nagihiko grinned at that one, somehow oblivious to the fact that Rima was repeatedly kicking him in the shin while I proceeded to repeatedly bang my head against the wall, no longer worried about property damage; maybe if I beat myself into oblivion, I wouldn't have to deal with these idiots anymore.

"Now now, don't do that—you'll kill your brain cells, and then you'll never get any taller," Cheyenna, who had somehow magically reappeared after we'd left her sleeping on the lawn, pulled me away from the wall, effectively ending my doom-and-gloom session.

"I'm not short!" I protested, feeling like beating the living crap out of my redheaded friend the way I'd seen Edward Elric do on Fullmetal Alchemist. Said redhead only grinned in response.

"Sure, and Nagihiko's not a gender-confused crossdresser," Kukai volunteered, and I flung myself at him, pounding his back with my fists and shrieking like an angry chibi-turned-Tasmanian-devil.

"Who're you callin' a pipsqueak midget who can't even go to the beach because she's so small that she'll sink into the sand and then when the tide comes in she doesn't have to worry about drowning because she's so microscopic that she can breathe oxygen atoms through the water?" I wailed, having to pause my assault on Kukai's back in order to refill my suddenly-deflated lungs. Once said task was accomplished, I continued flailing my fists at the redhead in front of me. "Baka baka baka baka baka!"

Sadly, I soon realized that a one-hundred-and-two-pound, four foot eleven-and-three-quarter-inches angry chibi isn't very dangerous to a much taller, much more athletic male, no matter how much she's thrashing about. What's more; once Kukai actually figured out that I was hitting him and that a persistent fly wasn't just bouncing off his back, he took a step to the left, causing me to fall flat on my face, still flailing my arms like an epileptic chicken that's trying to defy natural laws and fly.

Uttering an angry "Neeeeeehhhh!" that came out muffled by the carpet, I proceeded to scramble indignantly to my feet before hurling myself at Cheyenna, tears streaming down my face. Successfully attaching myself to her right arm like a particularly-persistent leech, I put on my kicked-puppy expression before pointing a trembling finger at my tormenters. "THEY'RE BEING MEAN TO ME!" I accused hotly, burying my face in my friend's sleeve and whimpering pathetically.

As I'd expected, Cheyenna broke down, petting my head as though I were a frightened kitten instead of a partially-abused almost-midget. "There, there," she cooed, attempting to console me, though even I had to admit that I was totally milking it. "Don't cry…"

Grinning through my fake tears (I'd learned that trick from Rima, and it had proved useful, being that Nagihiko was virtually the only person who could see though the façade), I made a pitiful sniffling sound, rubbing my face on Cheyenna's sleeve like an attention-hungry cat.

No sooner had the word "cat" passed though my mind than I felt myself being lifted—"Hey, put me down!" I shrieked, but whoever it was ignored me. Feeling the floor disappear from under my feet, I began to thrash again, twisting and yowling like some kind of animal that had managed to set itself on fire. "Lemme go! PUT ME DOWN, DAMMIT—OW!" I rubbed my nose—someone had flicked it, and I suspected that it was the same someone who was holding me hostage in mid-air.

"Don't swear," a deeper voice chastened from behind me, a hand tightening on the back of my shirt where it was being held. I pouted.

"Lemme go, Ick-toe," I grumbled through my teeth, going limp once I realized that there was no possible way to struggle my way out of his grip when my feet couldn't touch the floor.

"That rhymed!" Cheyenna chimed in, but we ignored her.

"Not until you stop being obnoxious," the cat-boy countered, swinging me lightly back and forth by the back of my shirt like some sort of ragdoll.

"I'll stop being obnoxious when youuuu stop being a pedophile," I retorted angrily, getting slightly dizzy from watching my limbs sway back and forth.

I felt his fist tighten on the cloth of my shirt before I was lifted even further off the ground, somehow experiencing the odd feeling of spinning; I realized why when I met a pair of irritated blue eyes, only about an inch or so from my own. "Care to say that to my face?" Ikuto asked threateningly, and I rolled my eyes.

"You stalk little girls," I snapped, meeting his irate gaze steadily. What does your face have to say to that? I challenged mentally (no, not mentally challenged, thank you), before realizing the stupidity and screwed-up wording of the entire thought. "Now that we've got that whole misunderstanding cleared up, would you care to put me down? I just bought this shirt, and you're wrinkling it. Oh, and my legs are going numb."

In response, Ikuto only proceeded to swing me back and forth again as if I were some kind of marionette. "Too bad," he deadpanned, and I curled my upper lip back in a snarl. "Oh, what're you going to do, bite me?" he purred, dangling me in front of him and smirking like a fox that's cornered a small, fluffy rabbit.

I complied immediately, earning myself a rather rough landing on the carpet at Cheyenna's feet, as well as the sight of an angry nekomimi, snarling a rather colorful string of profanities while rubbing his newly-injured nose.

"Don't swear," I crowed, parroting his earlier words back to him and grinning like a sick hyena. Cheyenna, who was by this time cackling like a deranged psychopath, doubled over laughing and managed to run head-first into my closet door, effectively putting a large hole in the wood and giving the term "hard-headed" an entirely new meaning.

Suddenly there was a cry from said closet, and I jumped, startled; the voice wasn't Cheyenna's—she was too preoccupied with trying to free her head from the hole in the door to speak. It was… different. Which meant that is wasn't the same. Which meant… That it was different.

"There's someone in the closet!" Kukai exclaimed, flinging his arm out and pointing at the damaged wooden door dramatically. There was a collective gasp from everyone in the room (minus Cheyenna, who was still stuck, Nagihiko, who was looking painfully confused, and Ikuto, who was still cursing loudly at no one in particular).

"It's Nagihiko," Rima volunteered, and the cross-dresser in question facepalmed.

I rolled my eyes and cautiously approached the closet door. At just about that second, Cheyenna managed to yank herself free of the offending wooden slab, only to succeed in falling backward and smacking her head on the corner of my dresser. I facepalmed. There had been a lot of that lately.

While Rima took it upon herself to drag my now-unconscious friend away from the closet so that the door could be opened (I commended her for it, really, since Rima was so small), I pressed my ear to the wood, hoping to hear some kind of sound from within the depths of my closet. There were none; in fact, my entire room was silent save for the sound of Lina tapping her nails against the wall. After several moments, I gave up on listening to the possibly-empty closet.

"Does anyone have a flashlight?" I asked, though I wasn't quite sure why, as there was a light fixture in the closet and the switch was right next to me.

Kukai rolled his eyes—that was beginning to irritate me. "Yeah, because we all carry flashlights around with us on a daily basis," he scoffed. "Turn on the—" He stopped talking when Kimi thumped him in the back of the head with her shoe.

"Stop being an ass," she monotoned before tossing something plastic in my general direction; it hit me in the face and bounced off, landing on the carpet at my feet with a soft sound of impact. After a short and extremely loud rant about how Kimi was going to kill someone one of these days with her careless aim (she heatedly argued back that I had the catching skills of a blind squid, effectively ending that conversation), I looked down and actually noticed what she'd tossed my way: a tiny pocket flashlight.

Snatching the little plastic trinket from the floor, I flicked it on and aimed the sudden beam of light into the gaping hole in the door that my dearest Cheyenna had created with her face. Squinting into the now slightly-illuminated darkness, I felt oddly like a government spy (or something of the sort); this, however, was probably due to the fact that Nagihiko had started humming the "mission impossible" theme song under his breath.

Strangely enough, there was nothing special to be seen in the dimly-lit closet; numerous shirts and pairs of jeans, a few dresses that would forever remain unworn as a result of my utter lack of femininity, a few stuffed animals and a pitifully-abused rainbow slinky, a massive ball of tin foil, a pair of feet, some sort of—what? I blinked several times before flicking the flashlight beam back to where I'd seen the pair of tanned feet; they were gone. Suddenly, I became concerned for my own health—was this group of complete psychopaths giving me brain damage? So much so that my poor, shattered mind was conjuring up such a strange illusion?

This thought left me with two possibilities; the first being that I was, in fact, going mad—those feet hadn't been there, I was suffering from an overdose of stupidity, and I seriously needed a vacation. While the last part was true to begin with, the chance that I was losing what little sanity that I had left wasn't a pleasant thought by any right. This left option two—also not the most thrilling of all possibilities: there was some kind of living being that had, by some strange twist of events, made its home inside my junkyard of a closet.

This, naturally, freaked me out just a little bit, and I made to turn around and order Cheyenna to call the police—what stopped me was the knowledge that my redheaded friend was out-cold, probably lying on the floor in whatever room of the house Rima had dragged her off to.

"Kimi," I mumbled, spitting out the first name that came to mind as a backup idea; however, before I could ask her to dial the authorities to come and retrieve the creepy hobo/axe murderer that had taken refuge in the dark space, another thought crossed my mind. Whatever was in my closet—that is, if anything was in my closet; I still hadn't completely ruled out the possibility of insanity just yet—didn't necessarily have to be human. All I knew was that it, whatever it was, had feet; sure, this ruled out a lot of creatures—creepy giant fish, gelatinous blobs with a taste for human flesh, and all quadrupedal organisms like wolves or giraffes.

On the other hand, it didn't necessarily disqualify everything except humans, either. Images of yetis and sasquatch-like creatures floated freely through my minds eye, followed by strange mental pictures of aliens that walked upright.

The fact that I was even considering the possibility of my closet being inhabited by a mythical creature or extraterrestrial being was enough to confirm my earlier suspicions of insanity, but I was past the point of caring. The knowledge was there, and the future inevitable—by the end of the day, I would have to be locked up in a plush room with my hands duct-taped behind my back; I'd giggle insanely when someone said the word "pudding," and go into hysteric fits of screaming at random intervals. I let out a creepy squeal of glee and gave a little bounce at the thought, succeeding in making Kimi, Lina and the rest of the group retreat a few paces away from me.

Throughout my entire thought process, I hadn't taken my face out of the hole in the door, and was still shining the tiny pocket flashlight into the black abyss that possibly contained an unknown life-form. I was startled out of my thoughts when the flashlight beam suddenly cut off; confused, I drew it out of the closet and examined the little plastic trinket. It wasn't damaged, and was emitting a strong little circle of light on the carpet, its new focal point since I'd moved it. Something had simply gotten in the way of its beam when I'd been shining it into the darkness of the closet—wait…

I let out a gasp and turned back to the hole in the door, only to find myself nose-to-nose with a face, peeking out at me from the opposite side of the hole. Predictably, I let out an extremely undignified shriek and fell backward, flailing my arms in what was both utter panic and an attempt to keep myself upright. That last part didn't go over too well, because I ended up flat on my back, staring up at the ceiling with a dazed expression while Kimi and Company simply observed with amused expressions. Yeah, I'm okay, I thought sarcastically, gnawing on my lower lip in frustration. Just fine. No, don't bother to ask—I'm just dandy. I heard a snicker from Kukai, and after a prolonged silence, Kimi burst into a fit of laughter, the sound of which bordered on the brink of insanity. To my utter horror, I heard a distinctly feminine giggle from the other side of the damaged wooden door—even the alien (or sasquatch, axe murderer, or whatever the heck it was) was laughing at me!

"I hate all of you!" I wailed, sitting up and rubbing my throbbing head—I'd hit it pretty hard when I'd fallen, though not hard enough to meet Cheyenna's fate and fall unconscious; how unfortunate.

Struggling to my feet and attempting to see through the colorful groups of stars that were frolicking in my line of vision, I gave an angry cry and flung the closet door wide… and was promptly thrown to the ground as whatever the heck was in the closet flung itself at me, arms outstretched. The terrified scream that followed was even more undignified than my earlier shriek—granted, I couldn't think of anyone who wouldn't scream if they were glomped by a vampire/serial killer/creepy psychopath (I still hadn't quite figured out what it was).

The others watched, wide-eyed, as I thrashed violently on the carpet, wrestling with the unknown spawn of my closet and, sadly, losing. Before I knew it, I had been pinned under the thing's weight—it was actually fairly light… but then again, it didn't take much to hold me down, considering my serious lack of body mass.

There was another giggle as the creature leaned down, nose-to-nose with me again. "You can stop screaming now," a feminine voice informed me, and I was so stunned that I obeyed without question.

"IT SPEAKS!" Ikuto gasped, trying to add to the moment and failing miserably when Kimi smacked him in the back of the head.

By this time, I'd stopped flailing and gone limp from shock, staring up at the face before me. All thoughts of aliens, mythical creatures and horror movie-related nutcases disappeared from my mind; the closet-monster, as I had come to refer to it as, was actually a girl. A human girl, thank God. A human girl who was now on her knees, hovering over me, hands on the floor on either side of my head in one of the most awkward positions imaginable. What's more—I actually recognized that thick head of dark hair and the sparkly eyes framed by a pair of glasses.

"F-Fatima…?" I squeaked, and the girl grinned before adjusting her position to be a bit less awkward; I would've been fine with this, had she not opted instead for sitting on me.

"You would not believe how long I've been sitting in there!" she breathed, showing off a strangely cat-like grin and looking down at me. "Hee hee… You're so short."

"I am not!" I protested loudly, snapping out of my stupor at the mention of my lack of height. "You're… You're just a giant!" I began to squirm, reminding myself of a rodent that had somehow gotten just its tail stuck in a mouse trap. "And get off! You're crushing me!"

Fatima arched an eyebrow. "Man up, will you? I'm not that heavy." She then proceeded to pat my head, not dropping the grin the entire time.

"Do you want to lose a finger?" I asked, narrowing my eyes dangerously, and she drew her hand back, believing me in an instant. She still hadn't gotten off of me though, and my lower half was beginning to feel a bit numb. "You're cutting off the blood flow to my legs," I informed her nonchalantly, and she simply stared at me dumbly for about half a minute, as though to say, "Well, what do you want me to do about it?" In response to her unspoken question, I summoned every ounce of strength in my petite body and heaved, rolling onto my side and dumping Fatima onto the floor (and possibly cracking one or two of my own ribs in the process).

She landed in a rather ungraceful manner, crying out when her face met with the carpet. The sight gave me a secret satisfaction, and I giggled.

"Well that wasn't very nice!" Fatima scolded once she'd risen to her feet, waggling her finger in front of my face and then yanking her hand back quickly when my teeth snapped about two millimeters from the digit.

"I wouldn't suggest ticking me off right now," I muttered menacingly, and Fatima actually seemed rather intimidated by the angry shorty she was staring down at. The realization that Fatima was, indeed, a full five inches taller than I despite being two years younger didn't do much to improve my mood.

Sighing heavily, I turned to introduce the sudden addition to our group. "This," I managed to say, gesturing to the fourteen-year-old simply, "is Fatima." Not knowing what else to add, I settled for attempting to make a joke in hopes of putting myself in a better mood. "As you can see, she's recently come out of the closet."

Cheyenna, who had woken up from her unconscious state and had since dragged herself back to my room, groaned at my bad pun and was about to facepalm—however, she seemed to remember herself and thought better of it; probably for fear of adding to the developing headache and mild trauma I knew she was already experiencing.

I quickly realized that such a reaction was better than none, because no one else seemed to even hear my bad attempt at humor. Immediately after my short introduction, Kimi had flown to Fatima's side, her eyes huge.

"Fatima?" she asked, awed. "Like, from Luminous Arc? Is that your real name?" She had attached herself to my young friend's sleeve, staring up at her with sparkly eyes—I vaguely thought that Fatima was too tall for a fourteen year old. Five foot three wasn't normal for a fourteen year old girl… well, actually, it was normal, I realized with a feeling of horror. Kimi was just really, really short. And yet, I thought darkly, feeling my hands curl into fists, I was shorter. Damn.

Fatima, faced with the sudden question, sweatdropped. "Uh… What…?" She asked awkwardly, and I knew that she'd never heard of the videogame Kimi was referring to—I had brought it up upon first meeting Fatima, and she hadn't known then, either. Thankfully, I didn't have to save my friend from her moment of stupidity, because Kimi quickly lost interest after about thirty seconds of silence.

"I'm bored!" she announced loudly, and I threw a plushie at her. It bounced off her face, and she stared dumbly at me.

"You're not allowed to be bored anymore," I informed her bluntly, though there was an edge of absolute hysteria in my voice as I did so. To be honest, I was afraid that somehow, by the end of the day, Kimi would be responsible for each of our individual deaths. I voiced this in a raspy whisper that rose and fell in pitch, showing my fear rather well. "Your ideas for countering 'boredom' are going to get us all killed. Let's all go play a videogame or something," I suggested frantically, trying to think of something that would pacify the brunette, at least for a while. Videogames were good—they weren't dangerous, so there was no risk of accidental injury, trauma of any sort, or further property damage.

Deliberating for a moment as to whether this suggestion was something she found interesting, Kimi made a show of stroking her chin as though she had a beard—I also noticed that she was tapping her foot rapidly on the carpet; I amended the thought when I heard an incessant squeaking sound—she was tapping her foot on a squeaky plushie, not the carpet.

"Mkay!" Kimi announced so suddenly that I nearly fell over from being startled. "Let's play a videogaaaaaaaaame!" At this point, I wasn't sure whether I'd suggested something that would save myself and the rest of the group from the horrible fate of another one of Kimi's "ideas," or something that would, to put it bluntly, screw us all.