The bar. One place Gendo knew better than his own room. Also a place where he didn't have to worry about anything except how much money he had left in his pocket.

No homework, no studying, no... Swallowing the last of his beer, he slammed his glass down on the bar. Money or not, he was done for the night.

He spun around on the stool and stood, ending up right in the chest of a guy carrying his own beer. The beer was summarily spilled all over the two, and neither one was all that happy with the situation.

"Why don't you watch where yer goin', pipsqueak!"

Gendo shoved the other man. "Next time walk someplace where people won't be standing up, idiot!"

"Look, four eyes, maybe if you buy me and my friends another round, I'll forget you dumped my beer and insulted me." He cracked his knuckles.

Gendo snorted. "I don't think so. I'm leaving." He tried to walk around the irate student, but didn't quite make it.

"How about," the larger man said, pushing Gendo, "you do it or we'll make you do it?" Behind him, three more beefy students stood, all with snarls on their faces.

"I don't think so." Again, Gendo tried to walk by, but this time, he was struck across the jaw and sent reeling, his glasses flying from his face. There was suddenly a flurry of fists flying at him from all directions. Before he could even try to fight back, the bar's bouncers were separating all parties.

"Yeah! How do ya like that? Go ahead and call me an idiot again!" the big man taunted while being held back by an especially husky bouncer.

Gendo was being restrained as well, but it was more like he was using the bouncer to lean on. Licking off the blood that was running from his nose, he spit it right in the chest of the one who had taken the first swing. "Yeah, and it still took all your friends and a cheap shot, you stupid jock."

In a few minutes, the police were there, and the taunting of the guys who had jumped Gendo died out.

He just gave them a lopsided grin and waved as the police began questioning them. For once, luck was on his side. Several other patrons backed up his story that the others had started the fight, and he was allowed to leave.

Staggering back to his room at roughly two in the morning, far later than he had intended to stay out, Gendo knew he hadn't seen the last of those guys, and he'd have to be on guard from then on.

Snorting, he hawked up some bloody phlegm and spat it on the sidewalk. Yui would have a heart attack when she saw him in class. If she even cared.

He wasn't sure anymore. She was friendly, but not as friendly as before. If that meant she didn't like him, he needed to know so he wouldn't keep thinking about her every minute, every day, awake or asleep...

But if she did, then he didn't know what she was trying to accomplish by keeping her distance. Not that with the black eye, swollen lip, and bleeding nose she'd want him to get any closer than necessary.

Another bloody wad was spit upon the ground before he unlocked the door to the building and entered. He trudged up to the third floor, to his room, and sighed before unlocking that door. He had really planned on going to class the next day, but after the fight...

"Damn punks," he muttered, grabbing a tissue as he closed the door, turning the room pitch black. Odd. Hadn't he left the shade open before he had left?

"Gendo?" a soft, female voice asked.

Gendo froze. The voice... Yui's? From the... bed? "Yui?"

"It's me. Come to bed."