Finding My Way

Chapter 7

 "Hey! Are you ready for tomorrow?" one of my classmates calls to her friend.

"Of course! My chocolate is homemade," the girl replies, drawing several more girls over.

"Who are you giving it to?" another girl asks.

"Kaname Kuran," the homemade chocolate girl whispers to the other girls, drawing gasps of respect.

"My chocolates are for Idol!"

"Mine are for Wild!"

"Personally, I find Senri Shiki rather attractive." The girls continue their gossip while Yori and I watch from our desk.

"Everyone is so excited," Yori comments dryly. "I honestly had forgotten all about St. Xocolatl's Day."

"Me too," I say though that's a lie. I've been thinking about whether I should give Kaname chocolates for weeks now. Ever since Takuma's birthday party, our interactions have really only consisted of greeting each other during the time when the Night Class leaves for class. I excused myself from our walks in order to focus on preparing a strategy for organizing the chocolate giving for St. Xocolatl's. I'm actually quite pleased with my plan, but my avoiding Kaname for two weeks now has to come to an end. He may want to continue our walks once St. Xocolatl's is over. I honestly really did need the space to think things over, but I'm looking forward to spending time with him again. I had been thinking about Yori's question a lot and I needed the time to think about it without him around.

"Ugh! All the chocolates are going to go to those Night Class guys!" a disgruntled male voice comments behind me.

"Yeah, the girls don't care about us at all anymore!"

"Hey, Yori," I ask over the complaints of the guys and the gossiping of the girls, "Are you giving chocolates to anybody?" I kind of wonder if she might like Hanabusa more than she's letting on.

"No, I'm not interested. What about you, Yuki?" she looks at me pointedly.

"Oh! Um, I don't think so," I say, avoiding her eyes.

"Sure," she says. "And you're carrying around a chocolate catalog for fun then?"

"Oh, okay, fine," I reply tiredly, "You got me. I've been thinking about getting some for Kaname, but I don't think I will."

"Why not? You obviously want to," Yori asks.

"I'm just afraid that it would be awkward for us if I did," I say honestly.

"I don't think so. He seems to really like you," Yori says.

We're both distracted by an exclamation of one of the guys. "Oh, yeah! We have Zero!"

"Yeah!" other replies, "He's smart, good-looking, and athletic. You're our only hope Zero."

"Get some chocolates for us, huh?"

I turn and look at Zero and recoil in fear. Silence falls as everyone looks at the murderous expression on Zero's face. "Eh, maybe, you should just ignore him," someone says.

Slowly, the conversation moves back towards St. Xocolatl's Day and I turn towards Zero, "Are you really so opposed to getting chocolate?"

"I have better things to worry about than messing with some stupid holiday," Zero replies.

"If this holiday had a Scrooge, it would be Zero," Yori comments to me.

"Let's invent one! He'll be named Zero the Antihero," I say.

"Antihero? Why do you say that?" Yori asks, looking at me skeptically.

"Well, for one thing, it rhymes and, for another, if he's the grump of the holiday, he needs a cool title," I reply, "Plus, if you think about it, Zero is totally an antihero. He's a good guy deep down, but you've got to get past all the roughness."