My first fan fiction, please be kind will you? I'm not good with words, I make tremendous grammatical errors, it was never my intention to ever, ever upload anything here. But here I am, contradicting myself. Blame it on my love for Shiznat.

AU. I'll try to make the characters as similar to the original Mai Hime as possible. I've made an after Carnival story so I'd prefer to write an AU for now.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kuga Natsuki or Fujino Shizuru or Mai Hime.

Metamorphosis

Her slender body was roughly pushed to the wall, a pair of hungry lips brushed against hers. She found herself trapped. She saw guilt flashes in those breathtaking crimson eyes. She slowly closed her eyes, succumb to this guilty sensation, this forbidden love.

'Who am I kidding', she mused. 'Our relationship could be anything, anything but love'.

She could no longer love, especially her. But those thoughts couldn't stop her from kissing back just as passionate, just as hungry. The crimson eyed beauty nibbled her lower mouth, their tongues fought for dominance. Hot breath tickled her skin, she moaned as the kiss deepened.

'How could this happen?' she asked herself. 'No, I don't want this'. After a long internal fight, she hesitantly shoved the intruder away. She saw a flickered of discontent, and…relief? But in a blink of an eye, those emotions were quickly masked away, as if they'd never existed.

The tawny tresses smiled nonchalantly and told her what she already knew, "This doesn't mean anything, Natsuki."

"It's Kuga-san for you, Fujino, and don't you dare touching me like this again!" she growled.

Uncharacteristically storming out of Shizuru's office, she felt a pang of anger and disappointment. She did not care that her indifferent image was shattering. She just wanted to get as far away from the poisonous snake as possible. Why the hell did it happen again? It started with a rumour that Fujino Shizuru was offer a job in Windbloom Private Equity and a promotion as an Associate in Hime at the same time. Don't get it wrong, Hime was a prestigious investment bank that offered ridiculous salary payments. But a 14 hours-a-day work load and the payment that was not quite as high as Private Equity's made it much less attractive. Naturally, it puzzled Natsuki that Shizuru had chosen to stay as an Associate in Hime. That question left her mouth before she could even stop it as she was handing over her work to Shizuru.

"My, are you displeased that I'm now your boss, Kuga-san?"

And then she just had to flash the irritating smile that never quite reached her eyes. Natsuki found her face heated up as she spurted colourful languages at her new boss. Overtime, the blunette had mastered the art of self-composure, but these days, she'd lost control rather quick. 'Blame it on Shizuru!' Their argument went on for a while until Shizuru decided to shove her tongue inside Natsuki's mouth to shut her up.

'What was I thinking? Why did I kiss her back?' She couldn't ignore the pain in her chest. She knew she was hurt again. Was it her pride and ego? Or was it her heart? 'Ridiculous' she thought. Her heart did not beat faster for Shizuru, it did not flutter when she was around, it...it did not ache every time she looked at her. Shizuru was a fake. The brunette was always smiling and looking at her with those infuriating amused eyes, as if she was beneath her. 'Idiot, I am better than this.'

"Natsuki-san!" yelled the spiky green hair man as he ran towards her.

Takeda, the used-to-be annoying boy who had followed her around like a leech in college, was now one of her friend. It was funny, she thought, for them to be friend. During college, she'd never have a conversation with him for longer than two minutes, and his stuttering took two third of the time. Takeda was now one of her team members. His competency in the job allowed her to see him as an equal, and it was the start of their friendship. He was still crushing on her, she noticed, but he had matured and learned that she would never harbour the same feelings for him. 'It was not creepy at all that he decided to apply to this bank, working at this team.'

"There's a party to celebrate Fujino-san promotion tonight, are you coming?"

In that instant, she wanted to blurt out 'Hell no!', but she gently rejected the invitation, lied about some works needed to be done. She surely did not want to celebrate Fujino Shizuru's promotion, no, she couldn't bear being in the same room with her. Shizuru was someone she should despite, and someone she should not kiss. Besides, there was an important matter that required her attention, much more important than flocking around Shizuru and kissing her ass. Though, she'd got to admit, there were many, many idiots who were willingly kissing Shizuru ass, literately, of course. Takeda blushed a little at her smile, he nodded and hesitantly walk away. Everything was too easy, she could always get what she wanted, who she wanted. Almost always.

Kuga Natsuki was a gorgeous girl. Gorgeous was an understatement when Natsuki decided to put on some light make up. She rarely did so, or needed to. Her silky waist-length midnight blue hair urged to be touched. She wasn't a fan of hair tie; her hair was left natural as it should be. Her porcelain skin and enchanted emerald eyes gave her the gentle look. That's it when she did not glare at people.

'Gentle?' – She snorted from the thought. Gentle was only a mask, if she wasn't an Analyst, she could be a good actress. 'An award winning one' – she mused. 'But what's the different between a corporate chess piece and an actress anyway?'

In fact, she was reckless and aggressive and she was quick to anger. Back in high school, they called her the 'ice princess' for her cold and distant demeanour. But as a grown adult, they viewed her as a friendly and gentle woman; she faked it very well indeed. And she hated, she hated that it was Shizuru who taught her all these things. Her life had always been complicated, but Shizuru made it unbearably more so.

They were polar opposite. Water and oil do not mix. Shizuru was like water, deceitfully gentle in the surface. But nobody knew for the fact that the water currents underneath were too damn complicated to comprehend. In one of her engineer class she decided to model the flow of water as one of her project but it was quickly dismissed as the idea, as cool as it sounded, was impossible to carry on. Why did Natsuki, a chemical engineer graduate, decided to pursue a career with Hime investment bank? She had her reasons, the reasons she wished not to share. Fortunately, investment banks loved engineer graduates, for their strong Maths background. And Natsuki was not only athletic; she was also an intelligent young woman. She graduated with flying colours that landed her this job.

'Wait, does it mean that I'm like oil? Sticky, slimy…yuck, I should have come up with a better analogy!'

Well, if there were any similarities between them, it should be the amount of fans they both had for the fact that Shizuru was just as beautiful. Was it her roman nose, her soft honey brown hair? Was it her perfectly symmetrical face, her two-thousand dollar Alexander McQueen dress, or charming fake smiles that attractted men and women attention? 'It was those damnable eyes'.

Natsuki was once a lone wolf, she was cold and unapproachable. Her kindness was only discovered by a few in Fuuka high school. There were Mai, her current best friend, Nao, her…well, she didn't know the exact word to describe their relationship. 'Sister, rival, friend, enemy? God damn Nao pick your freaking side'. And Shizuru. The brunette was the first to befriend her, the first to peel off every single layer of defence Natsuki had built. Shizuru, unlike Mai and Nao, had never learned her secret, but Shizuru was once her most important person. Ex-bestfriend. Some fans even paired them up, calling them Shiznat?! or Natshiz or whatever they liked. The truth was, they were not together, not that way, as Shizuru and Natsuki were both straight. 'Then why did we kiss again? Damn it Shizuru!'

To survive in this aggressive throat cutting corporate business, Natsuki had to change. She had to create a better image to move up the ladder. In an industry where connection was the key, Kuga Death Glare should not ever be used. Investment banking was all about money, big fishes swallowing small fishes, earning your fortunes by stepping on each other's grave. Everything was a zero sum game. There were always one winner and one loser, always. Those nonsense 'everybody wins' promises were only beautiful lies that tricked naïve players.

Money was a motivation. No one could deny the ultimate power those green papers possessed. We were aware of the control that money had over our lives, but our lives were so entangled in this vicious circle, there was no escape. We were all enemies, fighting for survival, fighting for food, fighting for our needs and wants. Of course being a rich girl, starvation was never a problem for her. So what was she fighting for? Another Jimmy Choo shoes? A shiny Ferrari? Though she preferred a Ducati Desmosedici D16RR NCR M16, but again, who would ride a motorbike in her skirt? Natsuki never really cared about those superficial luxuries. Those were not the reasons she had given up her dream to work as a scientist for this boring, very very boring office job. Revenge was her motivation. Funny though, revenge had brought her to where she currently was, Hime Investment Bank, working under Fujino Shizuru. Revenge reunited them after 6 years apart.

Natsuki fixed her collar and flattened out her black skirt. Her black blazer and white shirt were wrinkled due to a certain rather violent action performed by Shizuru. 'Great, another reason I should hate her.' Her clothes were perfectly ironed this morning, it was another thing Natsuki had to change. She never cared to wear a tidy uniform back in high school. Now, appearance mattered, she noted. Have you ever seen a sloppy looking investment banker? She was so sure that her stocking was ripped by the red eyed snake. Unfortunately it didn't, so she had no proof of sexual harassment. She wanted to get back at Shizuru, but even Kami was on the snake's side. As she sat on her desk, with only Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V actions left to do, her mind drifted to the brunette once again.

'We were friends once, what had happened to us?'