Fai glanced over her shoulder, it did not appear that anyone had noticed her leave. No one was opening the door and shouting at her to come back anyway. She looked to her right, then left, the playground was empty, and the parking lot was equally unoccupied. Okay, deep breath, time to go . . . "Fai, what are you doing?" The voice of her navi made Fai's heart rate increase tenfold. She jumped with fear and sank to her knees, hand on her chest. "Shh! You scared me!" She hissed. Fai opened her shoulder bag and pulled out her PET, where Boeman was staring at her with a confused expression and crossed arms, preparing to enter 'strict mode', as she called it. [color=gray]"Please tell me you're not skipping school."color] "Okay, 'I'm not skipping school'." "Fai . . ." "It's fine Boe, I have to leave early because I don't know what time the shop closes today." "Right, and you just coincidentaly decided to do this right before PE class." Fai couldn't help but blush and glance down at her feet, which instantly told Boeman that he was right. It was no secret that Fai despised PE. She was terrible at sports, which made her fair game for any nearby bullies. And Boeman knew how exposed she felt in her gym shorts and T-shirt. Right now however she was comfortable and confident in her baggy sweater and jeans, and wasn't about to change that. "Okay, fine, I am skipping PE, big mystery. But you're the one telling me to take initiative all the time-" "That doesn't mean rebel and skip school," Boeman muttered. "and I want to do something I'm good at!" Fai continued as if she hadn't heard him, "My brother sent you to me for a reason, he thought I would be good at computer stuff-" "Hey," Boeman cut her off, "You're brother is the computer science major, he made me to look after you while he's at college. And yes, I'll admit, I'd love to get my hands on some netbattling, but school comes first." "No way." Boeman raised an eyebrow, impressed. Fai was never so defiant. She must have been watching Gurran Lagann again . . . "I promise I'm not going to become a drop out or something, I'm just ready to do stuff with you! Let's get some zenny, we have zero! Fight viruses and stuff! Come on Boeman, can we please skip the afternoon of basketballs to the head and go do something cool instead?" "Uh . . ." "I'll take that as a yes." Before he could answer Fai shoved her PET back into her bag. She smiled and adjusted her white scarf. With a deep breath she took off running across the parking lot, away from school. Inside the PET Boeman smirked and shook his head. Well, at least she was coming out of her shell a bit. Besides, it was dodgeball this week in gym . . . Boeman shuddered.
((To: Beach Street))