Starlight (Kojiro Nanjo)

Chapter Eleven: Betting Pool

(Hello! I totally messed up and posted chapter twelve instead of eleven, my bad! So here's both eleven and twelve bc,, my mistake lololol)

"Look! It's Snow boy!"

An unfamiliar voice called out from the surrounding crowd of S, then one by one fingers began to frantically point to the sapphire haired boy as he made his appearance. Star turned her head to follow the crowd's direction, and her two students slowly came into focus. Langa remained as calm as ever, at least he looked it. Considering the fact he would be racing against Adam tonight, it was a little surprising that he seemed so still. Reki, on the other hand, wasn't as great at masking his feelings. The redhead had his eyes half closed, and appeared to be attempting some breathing exercises in an attempt to keep himself calm.

"Glad to see you showed up." Shadow muttered out, sending a wicked grin to the two partners in crime as they made their way toward the group.

"So.." Reki began, adjusting his sling to sit his arm more comfortably. "Is Adam here yet?"

"Not yet." Cherry hummed in response, clearly growing impatient with the man himself.

"I bet he'll make a grand entrance for his comeback." Joe added, a tiny grin on his lips as he thought it over.

"No entrance of his is ever grand." Star mumbled out, crossing her arms. "Hope he just doesn't show at all."

"Grand entrance." Langa repeated. "What does that mean?"

"Like he might shoot himself out of a cannon."

"False." Miya nodded his head. "He's probably just running a little behind."

"Miya." Reki sighed out, giving the boy an odd glance. "Do you ever laugh?"

"Understand why Kaoru and I don't get along with the guy, but" Joe began, glancing down to the woman beside him. "what's your deal with Adam? Ever since he first showed up, you've been at this throat with the insults."

"What he did to Reki should be reason enough." Star replied, raising an eyebrow. "I'm sure I could configure a list of reasons in less than hour. I'll have to send them by sometime."

"You for real?" Joe started to chuckle, a hand pressed to his stomach in an attempt to halt the belly laugh that was coming through. "Consider me interested. I'd love to read it sometime."

From behind them, Star couldn't help but hear the not-so-quiet mumblings from some of Joe and Cherry's fan club members. In recent visits to S, it was becoming increasingly clearer that she wasn't their favorite person in this entire world. A part of her couldn't blame them, feeling a tad bit guilty for taking some of the attention away that they used to receive. And another part of her didn't mind their whispers at all, feeling secure enough within herself that what they thought about her shouldn't have mattered anyway. Joe and Cherry made the conscious decision to be her friend, so wasn't that enough?

They weren't really hurting anyone.

At most, were only hurting her feelings a tad, but nothing too extreme.

So she always let them be.

Joe and Cherry probably would've made more of an effort to stand up with their friend had they known what was going on, but truthfully, the two men had learned to drown our their insistent noise a long time ago. Not in the sense that they would actively ignore the people who sought out to support them, but in the sense that if they weren't being directly addressed, they typically didn't listen to it.