A/N: Okay, so...yeah. I wrote this because my muses have been begging me to. I'm kinda pleased with how this came out. And even though I'm way excited, I'll save all of my excited comments for the end. Enjoy.
Do the Math
I had never thought, until now of course, that I would long to be back in the realm of darkness so very much. Don't get me wrong—it was great, needless to say, to simply be back on the island where I had made memories and spent my childhood years, and other such Disney-esque treasured targets, even if things did feel a bit cramped. Destiny Islands was my home, whether I liked it or not. Not even an intergalactic adventure could apparently keep me away for good.
Of course, I had missed certain things about it. Things like hanging out on the beach with Kairi and Sora, and racing, and swimming, and working on that godforsaken raft that we had been planning for some time. Not to mention the fact that there was always an abundance of logs on the island, and thus there was plenty of ammunition to throw at Sora, in the not unheard of chance that he was behaving in a considerably annoying manner.
However, there was one thing that I hadn't considered in my eagerness to pass through that door to light and get back home: school. It had never occurred to me in those first few weeks we spent back home in the light of everyone crying tears of surprise and joy, and sticking to us as though we'd dunked ourselves in glue, and demanding to know where we'd been while things slowly but surely changed themselves back to normal, that we would have to return to a task so mundane as school.
It turned out that we'd only had two weeks of summer vacation left when Sora and I had finally returned to our little island home. That's just my luck, honestly. Go out, become the puppet to a darkness-obsessed psychopath, nearly destroy all worlds, then change paths abruptly and save all worlds with the help of a best friend, and finally come back home, only to find you're about to be dragged right back off to the nearest educational facility. Wakka and Tidus had announced this fact to us hurriedly, if not cautiously, and I daresay they headed for the non-existent hills on Destiny Islands as my eye began twitching, and a poor innocent palm tree was suddenly assaulted by a number of rocks chucked from my direction.
I'd had to stop throwing the rocks eventually, of course. Kairi had caught sight of me, and was quick to calm me down with her hushed voice and honeyed words. Lord knows, that girl can do what no one else can. Oh please, you all may call her a number of names, but she is my friend for a reason, just so you know. There are worthwhile qualities in her. I'm not so sure people say that when they think about me.
In any case, my auburn-haired friend made it clear in her gentle but firm way that we were all going back to school, whether we liked it or not. I bitterly kept my mouth shut from that point on, but Sora did all of the whining for me anyways. He'd never exactly been a big fan of education either, as is oftentimes obvious. I'm not the whining type, in any case.
Still, it was only grudgingly that I stood outside the blindingly white hallway of La Escuela Secondaria de la Isla del Destino (Yes, believe it or not, Destiny Islands has a heavy Spanish influence). Or, more commonly referred to in the English language as: Destiny Islands High School. How charming.
I refused to take another step forward, glaring at the dazzlingly pallid, white hallway before me while it glared back in all its brilliance. See, there's another reason as to why the darkness is at least somewhat of a comfort. Light colors tend to make me look ashen and sallow, though I must admit that a pasty white complexion would go perfectly well with the scowl that was gracing my face at the moment.
It wasn't just the thought of returning to an educational facility to learn such useless information (When you're constantly engaged in a fight against darkness, Heartless, and Nobodies, you tend to realize that knowing such things as which chemicals form what reactions, and the proper format for a business letter is rather a waste of time; all that matters is if you're able to pick up a weapon and chuck it at something) that was making me so irritable. It was the fact that here I was, finally reunited with my two best friends in all the worlds…and now we're splitting up again, for at least another ten months.
I'm a year older than both the Princess of Heart and King of Big Shoes, and obviously, that puts us in different grades. The fates must hate me. As if wasting time learning worthless knowledge wasn't bad enough, I've always been stuck by myself, away from the only two people I've befriended in my lifetime, while Sora gets to play footsies with Kairi all day long underneath the desks. Being the oldest of the group officially sucks.
I had always despised being kept from my two best friends so much. I never exactly did see the point in making any more friends. The less people around, the less you have to stab you in the back…or for you to stab in the back, as I've already proven myself pretty much unworthy of Sora and Kairi's all-too-gracious forgiveness, in all my wonderful, backstabbing, double-crossing glory.
Reluctantly, I took my first step into the hallway of the cursed, dreaded high school. My turquoise eyes narrowed considerably as I struggled to adjust to the ridiculous intensity with which the fluorescent lights attempted to brand their images into my skull. It was always preposterously clean here on the first day of school, I remembered with a sudden burst of clarity. Everything from the white tile floors to the pasty white lockers had been shined to a high gloss, till one could almost see nothing save for the reflection of those damned, glittering lights. What in all the worlds could they possibly sanitize all of this stuff with? I'd never heard of Mr. Clean products being able to torture anyone quite like this before.
The first bell rang loud and clear, cutting through my thoughts with an ungodly buzz that announced how we were to make our way to first period, where the tormenting sessions could begin. I ignored it with a certain amount of obstinacy, sauntering through the hallways nonchalantly as the torrents of students suddenly swept by me without a second glance, all of them so eager as to not be late on their very first day. This bothered me, I realized, and slowed my pace even further so as to watch them continue to sprint by me, like the frothing torrents in the section of white-water rapids in a river.
Irony sucks, was my only current thought, and it stood out prominently in my mind with a rather acidic quality to it. How was it that they walked right by me without even a second thought as to me, or who I was, or what I'd almost done, to them and everyone else in the entire galaxy? I scoffed. Perhaps if there was another time when I almost destroyed all worlds, I'd give them forewarning just so I could watch them worriedly scramble around like frantic ants for a completely different reason than high school classes.
My feet moved silently over the tile floor as I continued on my path to my locker in my trademark casual manner. Just as no one bothered to spare another glance over their shoulder at me, I so ignored them, simply focused on getting to my locker and retrieving my textbooks for the moment. I didn't care if I was late. The awful late bell held no sway over me.
But perhaps ten years of practice had helped me to perfect my impenetrable coolness and uncaring ways about the terrible orifice of the educational system. Ever since I could remember, I'd always caused trouble at school—even since before I met Sora for the very first time. That was why I had been so particularly surprised when the spastic little squirt had sought me out in an attempt to befriend me, not just for a day, or even a week, but continuously, until I'd had no choice but to pay some attention to him.
"What are you doing?" he had always asked, staring in his doe-eyed way with genuine interest.
I had always held my nose up haughtily, attempting my very best to try and pretend he was some sort of bug on a windowsill that someone hadn't yet swept away. I really don't like bugs, and the glares that come to my face when I think of them are often particularly lethal, but it was hard to imagine Sora as a bug, even if he was quite twiggy. "I'm walking," I would always answer back in my most blunt tone.
He would frown slightly, and continue following after me, his short, toothpick legs always struggling to keep up with my superior stride. Sometimes I recall him panting a little. But he never slowed down to give himself a break. He just kept following me like a determined puppy that always follows the kid who's allergic to fur. "You walk like you're annoyed," he told me once.
I blinked for a moment before regaining composure. "I had no idea what a genius you were," I drawled.
The toffee-haired boy had never seemed to notice the sarcasm oozing out of my statement, nor my hints that I didn't want him around. He just kept trailing after me, until one day he finally asked if I wanted to come over and play baseball at his house, and I composedly accepted.
Needless to say, our game was cut short because the ball hit poor Sora in the face within the first fifteen minutes, giving him a nasty black eye and a bloody nose from which red practically gushed out. But from that point in time, a silent bond grew between us, and we met and talked outside when we could, if our recesses occurred at the same time, and sometimes we would walk home together.
But even befriending Sora had done nothing for my grades. If you've ever seen his own report card, you should know that even were he ten years older than myself, I wouldn't turn to him for tutoring of any kind. But it was more than that: It was as though even his cheerful, happy-go-lucky outlook couldn't break my tradition of receiving D and F markings. Even from that age, I had always had a sort of hint in my gut that the education they had in store here was useless to me.
Of course, teachers don't always stand by passively and watch my grades whiz by as they hit rock bottom and begin to dig. After all, if every student's grades affect the school's ratings individually, it just won't do to have markings like mine floating around to pull down the entire average. They've all tried everything humanly possible, including tutoring, extra credit, piling me with more work, threatening, and even therapy (though it should be noted that I was able to send the school counselor fleeing from their own office with their fingers clutched in their hair in dismay after only fifteen minutes). Nothing ever worked, and probably nothing will ever work. I prefer to keep it that way. It's so much easier to ignore the daily traumas by being lazy.
That isn't to say that I haven't ever learned anything. Truth be told, I do enjoy learning things of use. Even a good story sparks my interest now and then. Some little facts of history are even able to be appreciated by myself on occasion—but the tasks I enjoy learning the most are seldom taught in school (except how to climb a rope in gym), things like how to hold a sword correctly, and what stance is most effective in fighting, and even such tidbits like what fish taste the best over an open fire. But book work and dull, dry information means so little, and loses my attention faster than it loses even the ADD Sora.
After what seemed like another century and a half, I reached my locker, sauntering up to it with one final, loping step. I had just been considering what kind of inedible garbage they might possibly be serving for lunch this afternoon, when I noticed that my fingers were paused at the lock, ready to spin in the combination, but that no numbers came to mind. I stared blankly, waiting for any sort of familiar pattern to arrive in my brain so I could retrieve my voluminous tomes called text books and move on with my life. Still, I thought of nothing. It's amazing how being gone for a little over a year wipes out so many things that used to be so familiar.
"Fifty-two, twenty-six, thirty-nine."
I whirled around at the sound of the sudden voice, to come face to face with two half-lidded, amused eyes the color of coffee, set deep into a face that could only be rivaled in paleness by perhaps my own face.
"…Excuse me?" I inquired blankly, not quite grasping the seemingly random spoken numbers.
A dark eyebrow quirked knowingly over those two brown eyes and the eyelids raised themselves just a tad before slipping back down to their former position. A few wispy strands of hair fell over the right eye, seemingly of their own accord, while the person continued to stare at me as though I was an absolute idiot. "Your locker combination…I said your locker combination."
They spoke even slower this time, enunciating the words coolly and carefully, I suppose to make sure that their meaning got across to me loud and clear this time. Still, I continued to stare as though I had suddenly lost all comprehension of the English language, until I recalled at last that this was true. I remembered now: Fifty-two, twenty-six, thirty-nine. That had, in fact, been my locker combination.
Cautiously, I turned the little knob on the locker, entering each number in with a great deal more concentration than was probably necessary. I made sure to keep my own intense, bright blue eyes away from the unconcerned gaze of the speaker.
It was a girl, I suppose I should mention. Nothing about her was horribly disfiguring in any way, but it was obvious to see that there was absolutely nothing worthwhile in her features either. She was of average height, if just a little on the short side, and while her skin was rather pale, it wasn't all that surprising a complexion either. Just look at me, after all. For this being an island, Destiny Islands sure is chock full of albinos. The only one with any real skin tone is Wakka, Sora pointed out boredly once a few years ago. In any case, while her chill stare was almost unnerving, the dull brown coloring of her eyes was nothing special. Her hair was of standard length, just barely reaching her shoulders, and full of many wispy layers. However, the coloring was at least a little different. Judging by the roots, her hair had already been a simple black to begin with. But the shine from the fluorescent lights illuminated layers of a slightly more complex blue-black, obviously the work of a rather impressive hair dye.
It didn't help, though. It only seemed as though the girl had rebelled against her averageness in one last form of a stubborn defiance, by dying her hair in an attempt to at least demand a little more notice if she couldn't gain it naturally. All it really seemed to do though was bring out just how average the rest of her was. It vaguely occurred to me that she was plain enough to not seem worthy enough of a second glance. It couldn't be said of her that she had a cute upward tilt to the nose, or high cheekbones, or any other prominent features. She defined the term 'average Jane'.
In fact, it was probably so that had she not come up and blurted out my locker combination to me while the hallways were slowly emptying themselves, I wouldn't have noticed her at all. She wasn't particularly hard to miss, other than the fact that her unimpressive clothing that clearly lacked of designer names were so horridly bright, I feared for a brief instant that if the lockers and tile floor didn't succeed in blinding me, her blouse just might finish the job.
I couldn't help but wonder just what she might think when she looked in the mirror. Teenage girls seem to be subjects for one of two possibilities in the way they view themselves. Sometimes, they overlook ever little flaw and flip their hair out (There's a surprising amount of art in the supposedly 'natural' falling of a girl's hair, or so this lesson has been screamed at me by Selphie), and see nothing but what they want to see until they're almost to the point of narcissism. The other, more likely chance, is that they see nothing but the bad, taking careful note of every little pimple and zit to ever befall them in their oh-so-woeful lives while they accuse themself of being fat and starve themselves on cheese cubes and celery. I personally don't much understand those of the female gender. When I'm hungry, I eat, and when I feel like complaining about how much life sucks, at least I've got pretty good reasons in my dark, mysterious past, not just things like 'Oh, my parents hate me.' and 'Will I ever find someone who loves me before, dear God, I'm eighteen?!'.
This girl before me had a rather stubborn red blemish that seemed almost to be hiding right where the skin of her nose joined with that of her left cheek, and it looked all the more red in a way that meant she probably dabbed at it furiously with a Kleenex early this morning, and the foundation thrown hurriedly over it was blatantly obvious. I silently vowed not to point this out however, for I've made enough mistakes in the past to know that alerting girls of such things is a one-way ticket to going deaf in one ear from all the indignant hollering that ensues.
All of this I noticed within a single instant, along with one other fact: I knew this unadorned and almost painfully plain girl. I had known her for quite some time, actually, for it turned out that she had been in most of my classes ever since the third grade. I hadn't ever thought of her even once ever since I'd left the islands that one fateful night that the storm came to whisk us off to adventure.
Her name was Jade, I recalled now as she stood, simply staring at me with her arms crossed. The few people left in the hallways that still determinedly made feeble attempts to get to the correct class before the bell rang didn't notice her either. Really, most of them didn't pay her a first glance, which they at least managed to do to me. She didn't care, of course. It was written all over her face that she could care less.
Actually, her name wasn't simply 'Jade'. It was, put to its fullest, Jaden Lee. It was an unsurprising name for an unsurprising girl. Average Jade, not Jane, I thought with a wry little smirk twisting its way onto my face.
"Should I perhaps be wondering why you're so perfectly aware of my locker combination when I've been gone for so long? One might think you're stalking me, or something of the sort," I observed dispassionately.
She only tilted her head to the side the slightest bit, the corners of her own mouth twitching, as if against their will. A few more strands of hair fell in front of her right eye, and I might have imagined it, but it seemed to me that she almost laughed before she straightened back up again. "Are you really so quick to forget? You might have left, but numbers and I don't tend to part so easily."
Indeed, in that instant, another fact about little Miss Jaden Lee made its way back to me. Perhaps I was rather quick to forget. Most certainly, she was average all over—but not on the inside. There was not much that could be considered 'average' if it went on inside the brain of Jade. The majority of her thoughts could be summed up in one single word: Numbers. Equations and expressions, problems and solutions, formulas and numeric systems—all of them were the only things she ever deemed worthy enough for her to spend her precious time on. She never needed a calculator, though. I think she was perfectly content making love to her beloved numbers and all things relating to mathematics without any assistance whatsoever.
Our first meeting had been an interesting one, when she'd first arrived at the elementary school on Destiny Islands. I believe that I remember that school more fondly. The colors and bright lights hadn't been near so harsh there. She had stridden into the classroom so quietly that no one had even noticed her at first. Our teacher, Mrs. Robinson, had then finally taken note of the bored little girl standing around in the corner, and had firmly handed her a text book and instructed her to begin looking over the multiplication times tables, while telling her to ask for help as was needed. Yeah. Right. Like that girl had needed any help.
A much younger Jade strode over to an empty desk, pen in one hand and book in the other as she took a seat and flipped the text book open to the very beginning, rather than the assigned page. Her seat happened to be right across from my own. Not that I noticed this fact until, perhaps, ten minutes later I noticed she was standing placidly beside me, her own text book sprawled out across my own desk now. I could see that several of the answers on one of the pages it was opened to had been marked out and replaced by different ones in plain, bold pen, in her handwriting. Now there was a sight: a third grader correcting their text book.
I had previously been entertaining myself by leaning my chair back so that it rested on two legs, finding it amusing to push it as far back as it could go before sending it shooting forward once more, just before it could come crashing down and send me falling to the floor. I didn't fall, of course. I never fell. Seeing her here though, watching me with one black eyebrow quirked higher than the other, called for some sort of response, and her brown eyes met my turquoise ones as I grudgingly stopped leaning my chair back so that I could wait and hear whatever it was that she had to say.
For a few more minutes, she was silent. Her nose wrinkled up somewhat as she glanced towards the painted handprints hung up on the wall of our overly cheery classroom, but otherwise her face was blank. "You're very intelligent," she finally remarked, as though she'd said nothing more than 'I like your shirt'.
My mouth nearly dropped open. First off, I was rather uncertain as to what kind of third grader ever said the word 'intelligent' if they could possibly help it. Secondly, I was caught off-guard by her sudden and unexpected compliment. This was during a time that I was pronouncing my reign as the king of lazy, making a proud claim to the fact that I hardly ever cracked open a book. And here I had the text book-correcting girl telling me that I was smart.
"You're pretty stupid though, if you're not going to look over your times tables while you have the chance. Isn't there a test on this stuff soon?"
The following comment came as though she'd backhanded me, and I slumped further in my chair, disbelieving at the fact that I'd been caught off-guard twice now. I narrowed my eyes at her, using my infamous bug method of glaring yet again. It was easier than it was with Sora, but something about the way that she actually returned the glare rather than ignoring it like my hyperactive buddy had irked me to no end.
I tipped my chair back an inch or so further, in the hopes that perhaps that sort of thing might actually manage to wear on her nerves. "How'd you know there was a test soon?" I inquired, deliberately changing the subject as I was convinced that I had no need to answer this simple little arrogant girl.
"Calendar," was the simple one-worded response. Her unimpressive brown eyes never left me. It was quite clear that she still expected her response to the previous question. Subject changes would get things nowhere.
"It just so happens," I began with the best sneer a third-grader could muster, "that I already know my times tables. I don't need to study," I scoffed. This was partially true. I actually did know the criteria, for a change. But that was probably only because Mrs. Robinson had spent the first week in class introducing this stuff directly on the board and by yelling it loudly as though to lodge it into our craniums, rather than begin straight from the book as was usually done. It turned out that the cranium-lodging method had done its purpose, for there was only so long that even I could handle her shouting the different multiplication problems until they were involuntarily memorized.
Jade's first response was a mere shrug of her shoulders. That one eyebrow was still quirked a little higher than the other one. "Well, maybe the test isn't always going to be in the classroom. You'll need it later in life too." Her voice held none of the lecturing tone that so many other teachers had used when trying to install this one thought in my brain, but a certain ring of truth did accompany it.
"Test me then," I practically hissed at her.
We flew through the ones, and then the twos and threes. It was then that she began to skip around in sequence and order, and I fumbled for the answers sometimes, but was determined that I was not about to mess up in front of this little brat who had insisted upon invading my privacy.
"Nine times six?" she quizzed casually.
"Fifty-four."
"Twelve times eight?"
"Ninety-six."
"Twelve times twelve?"
"…One-hundred forty-four," I answered, smirking victoriously, proud in the fact that I had answered every one of her questions accurately. But apparently she wasn't yet done, for she only sent me an unperturbed glance and shook her head somewhat.
"And what about thirteen times thirteen?"
"…That's not on the test."
"You said you were prepared for a test. I never said it would be the upcoming test. Besides, you don't need to study, remember?"
I wracked my brain for an answer. I had no pencil and paper laid out before me with which to work out the seemingly simple problem, and such a feat would be to proclaim loss in front of Jade anyways. Mrs. Robinson hadn't yet been over the teens or anything of the sort with us yet, and so it wasn't available for mere memorization. The little second hand on the clock seemed to betray me in the moments of silence that followed, and when Jade finally stood up, it was she who wore the look of triumph as she shook her head again and made her way back over to her empty desk, while I angrily shoved the chair back again.
And then I fell, with a heavy thump against the floor.
I shook my own head so that my platinum locks were in my face, sixteen again and facing that same girl who stared at me with the same knowing little smirks and grins. My normally stone-cold cheek felt flushed at remembering such a humiliating loss in what had seemed to be such an easy battle. I remembered having gotten a one-hundred on that test on those godforsaken times tables, but it had brought me no pride—especially since I noticed that Mrs. Robinson began staring at Miss Jaden Lee as though she might worship her and her damned mathematical skills, had she not been a member of the Christian faith.
"You look like you dumped a bottle of calligraphy ink on your hair," I blurted out at last. Oh yeah. Now there's a statement to outwit her.
She regarded me strangely, head cocking to one side again (no doubt a precise forty-five degree angle in her mind). "I did," she answered without hesitation. "You look like your friends already drove you to the point where you're gray-headed and aging. Now grab your books and come along to class. There's about forty-eight more seconds left."
I had just opened my mouth to respond indignantly that my hair was not gray, but silver, thank you very much, but two things occurred to me in quick succession. The first was that it would perhaps be best not to remark about my friends and driving me to gray-headedness, because knowing Sora and his behavior, it wasn't a completely ridiculous prediction. The second was that I had math first, and Jade hadn't been in a math class with me since the beginning of junior high, where she'd been yanked up into the higher level mathematics division quicker than Selphie snatches at any sugar that's been left behind unguarded.
"You're…in my math class." It wasn't so much of a question as it was a statement.
She nodded once as a means of affirmation. Then she turned her back to me as her impatience grew before I finally remembered to grab the book out of my locker and close the door shut again, silently committing the locker combination she'd reminded me of to memory all over again.
By the time I was ready to begin walking again, she'd already sauntered forward somewhat. She wasn't rushing like everyone else seemed to be, though, judging on how slow a pace that she was moving at. "I don't much fancy the idea of heading off to college while the rest of my classes are being held here. So, I'm retaking some of the older stuff I took," was her brief explanation.
Older? I almost snorted, but did manage to keep my amusement to myself. I had a feeling there was some other reason behind it, though—probably she knew more than every college professor could hope to teach her. Maybe going back over her 'older' courses would do her some good. It would help pass her valuable time, at the very least.
As we kept walking, I could swear I heard her chuckle softly before she spoke the words, "Seventeen seconds."
"You don't seem to be in very much of a hurry either," I quipped back, eyebrows furrowed.
"No," she agreed with a wry grin. "But I enjoy counting."
---
The class period (and all of the ones after it, for that matter) flew by in a rapid blur after the talk with Jade in the hall that had seemed to last for ages and ages. I didn't sit next to her in any of the classes we shared, though I was near enough in math to at least catch her rolling her eyes in Wakka's direction while he made his 'math-is-hard' face and winced as he stared at the first lesson in the text book before him.
I had almost considered not bothering to so much as open my text book, but I'd caught sight of Jade again. This time, she'd been looking right back at me. The words 'Thirteen times thirteen' were virtually almost rolling off of her tongue already, and so I saved my 'One-hundred sixty-nine' for later, and flipped the text book open.
It wasn't until the three o'clock bell finally rang our freedom that I was truly able to speak with her again. As I grasped for my backpack in my mess of a locker, I noticed her standing in the same exact spot as before once I closed the locker door right back. Our eyes met again, and a small question I had oftentimes asked myself came back to me.
"…So how long was I gone for?"
It was something I had pondered again and again, for though I had a general idea of the time that had passed ever since I stepped through that damned door to darkness when the storm had come, so very many events put so closely together tend to blur even an understanding like mine. So, if anyone would know the answer, it would have to be Jade, I hoped.
But she only gave me another strange look, differing slightly than the one from before when I'd commented about her hair, and the silence between us seemed to stretch over miles and miles of oceans before she answered me. "Too long," she replied, and shrugged, and began to walk off.
I wondered about her as she turned away. I wondered about plain and simple Jaden Lee, and the mediocre clothing she wore, and the way that half of her face always seemed hidden behind her hair. I wondered about her interest in math, and the way she forced me to remember her so well when I previously hadn't paid her another thought in only the Lord knows how long. But mostly, I wondered where she was going, and I didn't even quite know why. So, before she could walk off too far, I grasped her by her pale, average arm and stood there until she looked back at me with the same sleepy, half-lidded eyes from earlier.
"One-hundred sixty-nine," I spoke as though it were natural to answer a question from about seven years ago. "Listen, I was wondering what you knew about measurements for a raft…"
A/N: Well, now's the time I'll ask those of you who don't hate me for life now: Did I do a good job? I'm probably going to write a sequel to this a little later, as I've had a song that inspires me stuck in my head for some time now. Did you all like Jade? I'm hoping she doesn't come across as a Mary-Sue, because that is definitely not what I was trying to shape her up to be. I just figured if I can inspire people with ArielxDemyx as a pairing, I could get my lazy butt around to creating a character of my own.
Haaa...as for Riku's locker combination, I shall give you cookies for whatever little pattern you notice in the numbers. Well, it's not really so much of a pattern as it is simply a common factor. Why did I do that? Eh, I don't know. I was bored and I've got this thing about numbers too, one might say.
Reviews make me squee. No really, they do. Just ask my mom, who gives me weird looks every time.
I have to go now, but I'll probably add on later. Thanks for reading, folks.