"Yumi, come on! We're gonna be late!" Livie yelled.

"No, we're not. You can't be late for your own party!" Yumi replied sharply.

"Ok, ok. Let's not get an attitude with the birthday girl!" Odd said to Yumi. "It's supposed to be a happy birthday!"

"Then why don't you kiss her?" Yumi remarked. "Then she'll be happy, and you'll have given her the perfect present!"

Yumi was obviously in a bad mood. It was Livie's birthday, so they were all having a slumber party in her room. This would usually put Yumi in a good mood, but all of their babbling about the party had given her a headache.

Yumi's last comment made the couple blush. Livie pushed her hair behind her ears and opened the door to exit Yumi's room. They had been looking for Yumi's horror story books, which they had hoped to read before they went to sleep.

"Whatever. Just forget the books. I can get some from the library." Odd said.

"Well, Odd, if you had ever gotten a book from the library before, you'd know that they closed at 6:00pm." Yumi said as she rolled her eyes. Odd glanced at the clock next to Yumi's bed. 7:00pm.

"Oh. Oops." Odd said as he shrugged. He left the room to join Livie in the hall. Yumi came out after a minute, and together the three ran back to the school and dashed upstairs to Livie's dorm. Ulrich, Aelita, and Jeremie were waiting in the hallway because Livie had locked the door.

She apologized and let them in. Ulrich was carrying a box full of video games, and Aelita had three bags of potato chips. Livie, who had a TV and a Nintendo Gamecube in her room and was a video game addict, snatched the box away from Ulrich and began to play a game. Everyone else, except Odd, sat down and watched her. Odd grabbed a bag of chips, but the rustling of the bag and the crunching of Odd chewing made Yumi's headache worse.

Yumi got up and snatched thebag away from Odd. She threw them at Ulrich, who caught them with a confused look on his face.

"Odd," Yumi growled, "if you make one more sound tonight, I'll kill you, understand?" Odd nodded and shrank back in fear.

"Yumi, are you alright? You seem . . . . tense." Ulrich said with concern. Yumi scowled at him.

"Headache." she said.

"Oh."

"It's making me a little irritable."

"Just a little?"

"Ok, a lot!" Yumi snapped, causing Ulrich to decide to back off and shut up.

After a while, everyone took turns going to the bathroom to change. While Livie was gone, Aelita shut off the Gamecube because she was tired of hearing all the beeping and humming comming from it. When Livie came back, she was REALLY mad.

"What did you do that for? I was about to reach my high score!" she yelled.

"Shut up. You'll get over it." Ulrich said sleepily. He and Yumi were sitting next to each other on Livie's bed, and he was starting to get a bad attitude too.

"Hey! I know what'll cheer you two up!" Jeremie exclaimed as he snapped his fingers.

"What?" Yumi asked.

"Watch." Jeremie answered. He got up from the floor and opened the door. Then he grabbed Odd's arm and dragged him out into the hallway, despite Odd's protests.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Odd asked with a bewildered expression. Jeremie hurried back inside and locked Livie's door, leaving Odd outside.

"Hey! You're right, that does help!" Yumi said with a smile.

"Yeah, he's out of our hair!" Ulrich agreed.

Odd banged on the door for a minute or two, but he stopped soon due to his laziness. Aelita opened the door to let him back in, but he had fallen asleep. She dragged him inside and commented that it was shocking for him to be asleep at 8:30pm. All of the commotion woke Odd up, but he was careful not to annoy anybody else.

"Hey, Yumi, you don't mind Odd comming back in here, do you?" Aelita asked with humor in her voice. When she didn't get an answer, she glanced over at Livie's bed. Yumi and Ulrich had already fallen asleep, and Yumi's head was on Ulrich's shoulder.

"Great," Livie said, "Now that the two angry lovebirds are asleep and out of the way, who's up for more video games?"

"Me!" Odd yelled as he jumped up and grabbed the second game controller. Aelita picked up the third and fourth and handed one of them to Jeremie.

"Odd, what did I say about you keeping quiet?" Yumi grumbled from her place on the bed. Ulrich heard her because she was so close to him and he opened his eyes.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked. He and Yumi noticed their positions on the bed and quickly slid away from each other in embarrassment. Yumi was blushing.

"Aw! Look, the lovebirds are shy!" Livie said, remembering what Yumi had said when they were looking for her horror story book. Yumi threw her a 'shut-up-or-you-are-dead' look, but she ignored it.

"Great, now her bad attitude is back!" Odd said.

"Can we all just calm down please?" Aelita said as she smacked Odd in the head with a pillow. He tried to hit her back, but he missed and ended up hitting Jeremie instead.  Jeremie, who was standing near the bed, accidently hit Yumi and Ulrich with his pillow while trying to hit Odd. No one had hit Livie with a pillow yet, so she hit Yumi with a pillow too. Then Yumi, followed by Ulrich, leaped off of the bed and began hitting anybody with a pillow in their hand (which was everyone).

And so, a pillow fight started, all in the period of ten seconds. They were all having fun. Fifteen minutes later, they were all laughing so hard that Sissi, whose room was next door, began beating on the wall and screaming. When that happened, they realized that people were probably trying to sleep. They looked at the clock and saw that it was 9:00pm. Yumi and Ulrich sat back down on the bed.

"Is it just me, or is tonight going by really slowly?" Livie asked.

"Funny, I was just thinking about how fast it was going by." Ulrich replied.

"You fell asleep. Your opinion doesn't count." Yumi said.

"So did you!" Livie said with a giggle. "Remember? Your head was on his shoulder!"

"Ok, ok. Can we talk about something else please?" Ulrich asked.

Aelita suggested that they play video games because that's what they had been doing before the pillow fight. When she asked who agreed, Odd did the same thing as before. Yumi opened her mouth to say something, but chose not to and rolled her eyes instead.

She picked up the potato chips she had thrown at Ulrich earlier and started to eat them. Ulrich slid closer to her and they shared the chips while they watched the others play their video games

Odd heard the crunching and got mad at them for "hogging the food". He sqeezed inbetween them and started to chow down.

Once, while Yumi wasn't looking, Ulrich punched Odd's arm. "Go away!" he whispered. Odd stuck his tongue out at him and he didn't move until all of the chips were gone.

After he finished eating, Odd got up and went out into the hallway without telling anyone where he was going. When he came back, he had Kiwi in his arms.

"What did you bring him in here for?" Livie asked. "Not that I'm complaining." she added as she took Kiwi into her arms. She began to speak inaudibly to the little dog.

"Hey, I thought I was your boyfriend!" Odd said playfully.

"Oooh, I think you've got some competition, Odd!" Aelita joked as Livie kissed Kiwi's nose.

"Hey, Livie? I just realized......you've never kissed me!" Odd announced. This time, he wasn't kidding.

"Well, you've never kissed me either." Livie answered as she put Kiwi down. She crossed her arms and looked at Odd, waiting for a reply.

"Really? You two are always lovey-dovey, but you've never kissed?" Ulrich asked.

"Oh, yeah, you're one to talk. What about you and your precious Yumi?" Livie answered.

"That's different." Ulrich said while he and Yumi blushed.

"How?"

"Well.....we aren't.......dating, or anything."

"Did you forget about her head on your shoulder?"

"Haven't you pointed that out already?"

"So?"

"Just let it go already!" Ulrich was yelling now. "There's nothing between Yumi and me, and there never will be! I have no feelings for her at all!"

The whole room was silent for a moment.

"Ulrich......" Yumi began, but she closed her mouth tightly.

"Oh........wait....Yumi......I.....I didn't mean it.......like.....like that......." Ulrich managed to say as he saw the expression on Yumi's face.

"Right.......sure......I.....I'm going...........................somewhere." Yumi said quietly as she turned and dashed out of the room and down the hall.

"Yumi, wait! Ulrich called after her, but she was already going down the stairs.

Odd was smiling.

"What's wrong with you?" Ulrich asked angrily. How could Odd find this funny?

"That's what I brought Kiwi for." Odd anwered. "To track Yumi."

"Wait......you knew this would happen?"

"Not this exactly, but think about it! Just when everything starts to seem ok, something bad happens again. And what do you know? I was right for once!"

Ulrich said nothing. He stood up, opened the door, and walked into the hall. Kiwi followed him as if he'd been trained to do so. He had no problem finding Yumi, and eventually led Ulrich to where Yumi was.

'What?' Ulrich thought. 'Why is she in my room?'

Ulrich knocked on the door hesitantly. It felt weird to knock on his own door. He could have just walked in, since it was his room, but he respected Yumi too much to intrude when he knew she didn't want him around.

"Go away, Ulrich. I know it's you." her muffled voice said.

"Come on, Yumi. Let me in. Please?"

"Fine. Come in."

Ulrich opened the door and saw that Yumi's eyes were red, as though she'd been crying.

"Yumi............"

"Just shut up, Ulrich. I really don't want to talk to you right now."

"I'm sorry........Yumi......"

"I MEAN IT, ULRICH!"

"Calm down, let me explain! I was sick of Livie teasing us. I didn't mean what I said to her. I actually lo...like you Yumi. A lot."

"What were you going to say?"

"Huh? When?"

"Before you said 'like' you were going to say something else and changed your mind."

"Oh. Nothing......nothing at all."

"Hmm. Ok, then."

Yumi decided to drop the subject. Then they both began to walk back to Livie's room.

"Oh God! Yumi!" Livie said when she saw Yumi's red eyes. She hurried over and gave her a quick hug.

"Don't worry. I'm ok now." Yumi said with a more cheerful voice.

"Ok, if you say so. But maybe we should all go to bed." Livie suggested.

"Are you crazy?" Odd asked.

"Yeah," Yumi chimed in. "Everyone knows you don't sleep at a slumber party!"

Everyone laughed and nodded in agreement. Yumi, who was feeling more cheerful, reached over and grabbed a magazine off of Livie's bookshelf.

"Hey," Livie said. "I don't care if you read those magazines, but if you touch one of my Harry Potter books you'll regret it!" She was only half-joking.

"Ha, ha." Yumi answered sarcastically. She flipped through the pages and stopped on one she liked.

"Ooh, is that a quiz?" Odd asked. "It's not one of those girly ones, is it? Cuz if I answered one of those I'd be kinda gay."

"Yuck, I never want to think about that again." Livie and Ulrich said together.

"Yeah. That'd be just plain weird." Jeremie said. Aelita nodded in agreement.

"No, it's not a girly quiz." Yumi answered, ignoring the others' statements.  "Let's see.....ok. Ulrich? If you were an animal, what would you be?"

"Ummmm....I dunno....a tiger?" Ulrich replied.

"Right....ok." Livie said as she pushed her hair behind her ears. "Whatever. But me, I'd be a koala or a panda. You know, something cuddly like that."

"If anyone's a koala, it's Aelita." Odd butted in. "And Einstein is a dolphin."

"HUH?" everyone asked.

"Well, aren't they supposed to be really smart?"  Odd said, as though it was an obvious and well-known fact.

"That is the most intelligent thing you've ever said." Jeremie told him. "And that's not a compliment, judging by how stupid that comment was."

Everyone laughed again. Odd looked like a deer in the headlights of a car, which implied that he couldn't think of an answer.

"What about you, Odd?" Aelita asked.

"Don't we all know the answer to that?" Ulrich said.

"Oh yeah!" Aelita said with a giggle. "A purple cat!"

Odd looked like he'd been hit by a truck. "So what?" he asked, becomming defensive. "It's better than a bumble bee!"

"Oh, well that was polite!" Livie said. Of course, she was being sarcastic.

To make an extremely long story short; Their argument continued for quite a while, but somehow it ended up with Livie saying: 

"It's not my fault you're so funny and handsome!"

And Odd replied:

"Well, it's not my fault that you're so smart and beautiful!"

And then they fiercely grabbed each other at the same time.

And kissed.

Right there in front of everybody.