The hallway was buzzing with voices. Everyone from freshmen to seniors was talking at the same time, greeting friends, exchanging news, asking for directions. Dozens of students from every grade were crowding in front of a list, searching for their names in it.

"Look, there's my name too! Ryuusei, Koyuki, Sakuya, we're all in the same class!"

"I can't believe I'm in the same class as you again, Watanuki!"

"Hey, Angel-chan! Looks like you'll have to bear with me for another year!"

"Tsubakyun, look, look! We're not in the same class anymoooore! We've been separated!"

"My, my, what a lively scene..."

Mahiru went through the list again. He took pride in knowing pretty much every student at the school, or at least he knew everyone's name and face, which was already impressive enough in itself. Every name on the list rang a bell and made a face appear in his head, along with one or two details he had observed about them during the past year.

He stopped when it came to the last name listed in class 2-B, blinked, frowned, and stared at it for a moment.

Sakuya peeked over his shoulder, trying to figure out what he was staring at. "What's wrong?"

"Weird." Mahiru shook his head slightly, still staring at the list as if he was waiting for a sudden epiphany. "There's one name I've never heard before."

"...Alicein?"

"Here."

"Watanuki?"

"Here."

"Shirota?"

"Here."

"Kuro?"

No answer.

The teacher sighed, adjusted her glasses, and asked again, louder this time. "Is Kuro here?"

A confused murmur arose as everyone in the class started to whisper at the same time. Mahiru tried to listen and made out the words "scary", "delinquent" and "skipping". And, over and over, the same thing: "Glad he's not here."

His eyes strayed to the only empty seat in the entire classroom, the one that was probably supposed to belong to Kuro. It was the seat right next to him.

So the student whose face Mahiru didn't know was supposed to be seated next to him, and he was missing.

Mahiru felt curiosity sneaking up his spine, tugging at him to go and solve the mystery. Here was someone he didn't know, mysteriously not showing up to class. Was it a transfer student? Someone who had been sick a lot during the past year? Mahiru had no idea, but he knew that he would find out. The sooner the better.

Class dragged on and on, and just this once he was not happy when the teacher approached him once it was over. "Shirota-kun?"

"Yes?" Damn, he probably shouldn't have volunteered to be the class representative just because nobody else wanted to do the job. Maybe if he had kept quiet, the teacher would have let him leave with the others. "Can I help you?"

"Well, Shirota-kun," the teacher adjusted her glasses again, "since you're the class representative and head of the disciplinary committee, I thought maybe you're the right person to handle this case. You see, I have a favor to ask."

The elderly lady's expression darkened with worry as he continued, "It's about the student who was absent today."

Mahiru's breath caught in his throat. All his attention snapped to the conversation and held onto it for dear life as he whispered, "Kuro."

"Yes. He's... a problematic one. Got into a fight right after the entrance ceremony last year and ended up suspended for a week, but he's barely attended classes ever since. Sometimes he shows up after lunch break but leaves after an hour, but most of the time he disappears to who knows where and avoids everyone who tries to reason with him. Most teachers have given up on him, but I think there's still hope. Maybe if you, a student his age, tried to talk to him...?"

Mahiru nodded quickly. "I'll do it."

"Fantastic!" The teacher hurried to her desk and came back with a notepad, scribbling something down. "I'll just give you his room number, in case he ever actually is there."

Mahiru took the note, thanked her and hurried out of the classroom into the hallway, where his friends were waiting.

Seeing their questioning looks, he smiled. "I've got a mission."

Oh, how he couldn't wait for the school day to be over.

Mahiru had never been so happy that a class was canceled. The day had dragged on long enough, and for some time he had considered looking for the mysterious student during lunch break, but his friends and his growling stomach had convinced him otherwise. Now he would simply drop his things off in his room, and then he'd go looking for Kuro.

As soon as he caught sight of his door, he knew something was amiss.

His key... had he really forgotten his key in the keyhole this morning?

He started to run as he frantically searched all his pockets, hoping there was some kind of mistake or he was imagining things, but he wasn't. The key, which was supposed to be safe in his pocket, was stuck on the door, allowing anyone who happened to be around to enter.

Had someone entered?

Calm down, he told himself, calm down. Don't panic. Who could possibly have entered his room while he had been in class? All the students had been at school, just like he had, and none of the teachers ever went here. The only ones who could have been here while he had been away were the cleaning staff, and they usually left the rooms alone, even if people forgot to lock the doors.

Besides, it wasn't like there was anything valuable in there.

Still, he rushed to the door, snatched the key and threw it open like he was trying to run from a fire.

Mahiru didn't know what he had expected to find or not find in his room, but this definitely wasn't it.

The room was dark. All the curtains were closed; the only light came from the laptop computer on his desk - a laptop computer that most definitely wasn't his. Some YouTube video was playing on it, filling the room with quiet voices whose words Mahiru couldn't quite make out. Empty bags of potato chips, ramen cups and candy wrappers lay spread all over the place. There were crumbs everywhere.

Sitting in the middle of this unusual scene, staring at Mahiru like a deer in the headlights, was a boy.

He was about the same age as Mahiru, tall, a bit lanky, curled up in a fur-lined jacket even though the room was warm. His hair was blue and looked like it was in need of a haircut, and his skin was pale except for the dark bags under his eyes. A pair of heavy-lidded red eyes met with Mahiru's brown ones as the boy gave an exasperated sigh. "Man... This is about to get really exhausting."

One by one, the gears in Mahiru's brain started turning.

There was a stranger in his room, and he had made a complete mess.

Without hesitation, he flung his bag into the corner, snatched the broom from the closet and lunged at the stranger. "Who the hell are you?" he yelled. "What are you doing in my room?"

The stranger dodged his attack with ease, blocked another one, jumped out of reach of the third and tried to make for the door, but Mahiru was faster. He dropped the broom and grabbed the hood of the stranger's jacket, yanking him back. "Hold it right there! You're not going anywhere until you've answered my questions. Who are you?"

The other boy sighed again and turned around. "I'm just your friendly neighborhood truant. Please don't hurt me."

Mahiru's frown deepened. "Did you just say truant? You're... skipping class?"

"That's what I just said," the boy deadpanned.

"Hold on." A thought popped up in Mahiru's head, and others followed faster and faster, like a handful of loose stones that turned into a landslide. "Are you from our school? What year are you in?"

"Second."

"Don't tell me... your name is... Kuro?!"

The boy slightly flinched, but his expression remained deadpan as ever. "Ah, you know my name."

"Yes, I do!" Mahiru's voice grew louder as he started to speak faster and faster. "Our teacher asked me to talk to you because you've been skipping way too much! What the hell are you doing, not going to class? You better have a very good excuse!"

Kuro shifted slightly in a feeble attempt to escape Mahiru's iron grasp. "School's a pain," he mumbled. "You have to get up early and do all this work and talk to people and stuff and it's really exhausting. I don't wanna go."

"That's not an excuse!" Mahiru grabbed him and shook him. "Hey, don't try to get away! And that still doesn't answer the question how you ended up in my room!"

"Don't shake me... Geez, you're so violent..."

Mahiru chose to ignore the last remark. "Answer! My! Question!"

Kuro yawned. "I didn't wanna go to class and sometimes they look for me in my room when I'm skipping, so I was looking for some place to hide where they wouldn't find me. And I saw that you'd forgotten your key, so..."

"...so you just opened the door and made yourself at home in somebody else's room." Mahiru honestly didn't know if he should laugh or cry. No matter how he turned the matter in his head, it just became more and more ridiculous. He sighed through gritted teeth and looked at the complete and utter mess behind him.

Well, first things first.

"Fine," he said, trying his hardest to stay calm. "What's been done has been done. But!" He raised his voice again. "You're going to clean up this mess or you're not going anywhere!"

"What a pain..."

"You're the one who's a pain! First you skip class, then you sneak into someone else's room, act like it's yours, throw your trash everywhere, leave crumbs all over the place and now you're trying to make me clean all that up? Keep dreaming!"

Kuro leaned his head against the door and sighed. "Wow... Just listening to you is exhausting. That's a rare gift."

"Listen!" Mahiru went on, his voice growing louder and more impatient. "You're not going anywhere until you've cleaned up the entire place, got it? I'll keep you here all night if I have to!"

A hint of amusement slipped into Kuro's deadpan voice. "So bold."

Mahiru stared at him for a moment before the implication of his words dawned on him. Here he was, pinning the other boy against a door, saying that he'd keep him in his room all night... His face heated up as he raised a hand in a futile attempt to cover up the luminescent blush on his cheeks. "Th-That's not what I meant! I'll just keep you here until you clean up the mess you made, because I'm not doing that! And if you refuse to do it all night, I won't let you leave all night! It's that simple!"

"You can't keep me here past curfew."

"I will keep you here until curfew!" Mahiru shot back, secretly glad that Kuro had dropped the... other topic. "Unless, of course, you hurry up and get rid of all the trash now!"

Kuro gave a sigh that seemed to carry all the sadness in the universe, mumbled "What a pain" and got to work.

He was godawful at it. Kuro kept dropping one item of garbage as soon as he reached for another, overlooked the candy wrappers, simply spread the crumbs more neatly over the place instead of getting rid of them, and was being unhelpful in every possible way. It wasn't even that he was doing it on purpose; he was just genuinely clumsy and inexperienced. Mahiru cringed so much he couldn't bear to look at him for more than two seconds at a time.

Oh well.

"That's not how you do it," he sighed, kneeling down next to Kuro. "Look here. You should stuff the candy wrappers into one of the ramen cups... and then stack them all into each other... like this. That's way more effective... see?"

Kuro tried Mahiru's method. "It works," he remarked, and just for a split second his eyes seemed to shine with something akin to happiness.

"And now you're helping me," he added almost smugly.

The bit of sympathy Mahiru had just begun to feel for the strange new boy vanished in an instant. "Only because I don't want you creating an even bigger mess in this room! Now hurry up and finish cleaning already!"

In the end Mahiru still had to help, and he did, all the while complaining and scolding Kuro, who watched him with mild interest. "Why didn't you just help me in the first place?"

"Why should I? You're the one who trashed my room!" Mahiru snapped. "You should be grateful I'm helping you, and I'm only doing this because I don't want my room to be a mess and you suck at cleaning!" He finished up and turned to face Kuro. "Actually, you should be glad I didn't report you for trespassing!"

"You sure are making a huge deal outta this," Kuro sighed. "What a pain. Do you even have a right to act so bossy? Who are you, anyway?"

Mahiru blinked, taken aback. He hadn't really thought of that before because the entire school knew his name, but now it seemed obvious. If he hadn't known Kuro before, why should he assume that the other boy had known him?

"I'm Shirota Mahiru," he said. "Your classmate, class representative and head of the disciplinary committee! So yes, I do have a right to act bossy, as you just put it!"

"In other words, a workaholic."

"Look who's talking!"

"So, like," Kuro said, reaching for the doorknob, "can I leave now, or are you gonna be lonely without me?"

"Get out before I throw you out!"

"So violent... can't deal." Kuro took a step forward and faced Mahiru head-on. "I can already tell you one thing. You and I will never get along."

Mahiru glared right back at him. "That should be my line!"

Kuro shrugged, opened the door and walked out.

"And you're coming to class tomorrow!" Mahiru yelled after him into the hallway. "I won't let you skip, got that?"

Kuro didn't turn around, but Mahiru swore that he head him mumble something very akin to "What a pain."

He shut the door again, took out his cell phone and set the alarm to an hour before the usual time.

He was probably going to need it.