AHH! I just realized I totally forgot the disclaimer for the first chapter! ((stupid, stupid, stupid...)) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

DISCLAIMER- I do not own Psycho Busters!

Chapter 2

Kimiko knew that she was still an introverted individual. She still held an old and yellowed paperback in her left hand. Books were never far from reach for her. Kimiko also never read a book twice, doing such was a waste of time due to the thousands of other books available. Why read one a thousand times and be able to recite the entirety of it when you could've read many others and learned far more about society than that one had ever taught you?

Kimiko knew this philosophy quite well, and, in fact, lived by it. Hence the ever changing paperback that was held in her left hand. She was a lonely person, who knew a thousand ways to procrastinate without the help of other human beings. Kimiko had no friends. She often found herself gazing out at Kakeru and his friends, wishing so badly to be a part of their fun. In Kimiko's world, Kakeru and company were the center of the world. It was the one place she yearned to be a part of. Somehow, she knew that this was an impossibility.

She pushed up her red framed glasses and pushed up the long sleeves of her sweater. This action revealed the pale, almost nonexistent scars that ran up and down her pale arms. They faded and hid with her natural skin color, that was just how pale skinned she was.

Her brunette curls pushed behind her ears as she perched on the front stairs to the entrance of her house. She cracked open her intriguing book, 'Stardust' by Neil Gaiman. She was halfway through the novel on Part 5, and Kimiko would surely finish it that night.

As any aloof child would, she spent more time alone than with anyone else. An alarming amount of people had come to her birthday party as well that year. The party consisted of her and about eight other girls who ended up playing with Marika instead of Kimiko. This didn't hurt her feelings, truthfully she had no preference for those girls anyway. Marika found it to be a grand time too.

Kimiko placed one foot in front of the other. The first day of ninth grade was upon her. She wasn't frightened, worried or anxious. Instead, she looked on at the class assignments blankly, a paperback hanging loosely from the fingertips of her left hand. She was in class 9-A. This was, of course, the class of students with a higher intellect. The scale went all the way down to D, being the least intelligent. Kimiko walked past the complaining kids without giving them a second glance. This was just as she always had done. She moved alone, talked to none and excelled in her classes.

Kimiko knew that she should most likely try harder to make friends. Clutching her new book, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, she stepped past Ayano, all of her bravery lost when she'd looked at her. Kimiko tightened her fingers around the book, upset by her lack of confidence. Ayano didn't seem to even notice her. Her eyes lit up, and she waved to someone else.

"Kakeru!" she called, running up to the brunette boy and hugging him. Kimiko's shoulders slumped, and Kimiko kept on walking. There was nothing she could do, it seemed. She stared at the ground, walking with no particular destination in mind. She didn't feel like going to class just yet. Kimiko bumped into someone and was knocked to the ground. She looked up into the face of Kaito, one of Kakeru's friends. Kaito was tall with spiky, dark brown hair. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"S-sorry!" she whispered, standing up quickly after picking up The Scarlet Letter off of the ground. He shrugged as she hurried past him. He glanced back, noticing that no girls ran up to her to see if she was okay. It was like she was a ghost. Kaito rubbed the back of his head, wondering if she was when his thoughts were interrupted.

"Kaito! We're in Class B together!" Ayano yelled, smiling and waving to him. He turned to her and Kakeru and walked over to them.

"Hey, lovebirds, so we're all in class B again this year?" Kaito asked the two. Ayano and Kakeru blushed, and Tomoe giggled in amusement.

"Don't call us that…" Ayano said, despite her embarrassment.

Kimiko sat down in her homeroom and cracked open her book. She reentered the sad world of the young mother in The Scarlet Letter. Her homeroom class was quickly over, and she moved on to find her first period class. It seemed that this year, everything would be merely the same as the ones before.

X _ X

Kaito left their last period faster than usual. He found that class to be a complete waste of time. His brain continuously tracked back to the "ghost" he'd bumped into earlier. What was her name? What class was she in? Would he see her again?

"Kaito! Wait up!" Ayano called after him.

"Ayano, let him go. He probably has something on his mind," Xiao Long said to her. His fairly long black hair fell into his eyes, and he quickly pushed it back into place. She sighed. Kakeru took her left hand in his right, giving her a reassuring smile.

Kaito shoved his books into his locker. He hadn't seen that girl since before school. He swung his backpack over his shoulder and slammed his locker closed. As soon as he turned around, his eyes landed on the unmistakable brunette curls. There she was in the middle of the hall, trying to weave her way through the crowd. Kaito pushed his way through the random students in attempt to catch up to her. He reached out to her, tapping her shoulder lightly. She almost dropped her book in surprise.

"Hey, sorry for running into you earlier. My name is Kaito," he said with a goofy smile. She turned and looked at him with wide eyes, her red framed glasses sliding down her nose a bit. She pushed them back up habitually.

"H-hi," she stuttered, blushing in embarrassment.

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