Rosaline sighed as she took a seat in the uncomfortable desk. Every fifty years, she would return to a high school to catch up with the times. She would also have to go through college again, since her degrees were starting to get older than she appeared.

This was her first time in Japan. She had been in the country for thirty years already to learn and master the language and area. But, the small village was starting to notice the ageless hermit, so she left to the large city to disappear in plain sight. But, she needed a job, and to get a job, you needed education that was more up-to-date than the 1950s.

She had kept up with fashion over the years, but to her, the styles the students wore their clothes was questionable. They had a strange uniform. The boys had a white collared button up with a brown vest and red tie. All of that was fine until the orange jacket showed up. The girls' uniform was a white collared button up with a light tan sweater vest and red string ribbon tie. She hated the navy skirt and navy knee-high socks they had to wear.

"Hey, are you new?"

She looked up from her desk, looking at a brown haired boy with brown eyes. Such innocence and naivety. He had altered his school uniform a bit, his khaki pants rolled up to his knees.

"Yes," she replied as he offered her his hand.

"I'm Mahiru Shirota," he introduced as he shook her hand.

"Rosaline Greed," she replied.

She hated making friends, but they we necessary for high school. Humans had this odd need for company. It was as though if they didn't form some sort of relationship, they would fall into insanity and die. She had seen students with extreme potential end their lives or die some other way so she took whatever friends that came her way, and made sure they were kept happy and safe.

"Where are you from?" He asked as he took a seat at the desk next to her.

"Verona, Italy."

His face lit up like a Christmas tree. "What's it like?"

She shrugged a bit, "Clean, quiet. At least, it was the last time I was there." She gave a slight chuckle, "They had this garden that this princess asked the people to plant. I don't think it's there anymore, though. It had started out as this small community garden then turned into a field of flowers. Ophelia's Meadow, I think. I don't remember what happened to it."

After her father left for some meeting, Rosaline never returned. She had heard the kingdom her mother fought so hard for had fallen. Having studied it in one of the high schools, she even went as far as to become a history major to prove that her mother didn't deserve to die. Her longing to correct history had since been alleviated, but she hadn't returned.

"Wow, that's amazing," he awed. "What brought you to Japan?"

She shrugged, "I just ended up here. I was in foster care, the family that took me in moved to Japan, and gave me the apartment of their deceased son."

"Oh, wow," Mahiru frowned. "That must be hard."

"There are worse things," she told him. "It just gives me a different look on life, helps me give advice to people who have never experienced it before."

He blinked a couple of times before someone put his hand on his shoulder. Rosaline looked up at the green haired teen who had also altered the dress code by wearing a black and white striped shirt under the orange jacket, and he had pink head phones on his shoulders. "What's up, Mahiru?"

"Oh, hey, Sakuya," Mahiru grinned. "This is Rosaline Greed."

Rosaline gave a wave to the energetic boy who stared back with crimson eyes. He blushed some, looking a way for a second while rubbing the back of his neck before looking back with a smile, "H-Hi."

He threw his bag into the desk behind Mahiru just as a blonde and brown haired boy walked in. What sort of people were they? The newest members seemed just as innocent and impressionable as Mahiru, but there was something in Sakuya that told Rosaline he had seen and experienced things no one should go through.

"Huh? Who's the new girl?" The blond asked. He had the dress code uniform on, but there was a headband on his head, keeping his hair from his eyes.

"This is Rosaline Greed," Mahiru introduced. "Rosaline, these are my friends Ryusei and Koyuki."

Before she could give any sort of greeting, the teacher walked in and class began. Rosaline had forgotten how hard it was to focus in school. By the end of the day, she had drawn incredibly detailed pictures of Mahiru and Sakuya.

"Wow, that's incredible!" Koyuki exclaimed as he looked over Mahiru's shoulder at the picture. "And you did that just today?"

"I think I was an artist in a previous life," she suggested. Only a hundred years ago, that much was true. Artist and author for a few years, relying solely on people willing to buy her pieces. One of her books had made it to a must-read list, and a couple of her paintings were in museums.

"Yeah," Mahiru agreed. "Can you draw anything?"

"Almost. I can't draw people unless I see them."

"Cool. Can you paint and stuff too?" Sakuya asked.

"Yeah."

"That will come in handy when we have projects," Koyuki pondered, smiling. "We'll actually have a chance winning this year."

"Winning what?" Rosaline asked.

"It's not a competition, really. It's just the school festival. It's nice to be acknowledged and everything, but it's really about having fun," Mahiru explained while the other four stopped and stared at him.

"So, what I'm hearing is Mahiru really wants to win and has been very petty about the previous losses," Rosaline grinned.

"Yeah, pretty much," his friends agreed while Mahiru strongly objected the thought.

Sakuya laughed as he put his arm around his friend's shoulder, "Don't be so uptight, Mahiru. We know you're not that bad."

"Ah, Rosaline, can we get your number?" Ryusei asked.

"My number? Why?" She asked curiously.

"In case we need help with homework or something," Koyuki smiled.

"Or, since we're friends, we can keep in contact," Mahiru said, rolling his eyes at his friend's answer.

Unable to really find a way to say no to that, she pulled out her phone, and the group began swapping numbers. Just as she finished, a reminder popped on her phone. Grocery shopping.

"Crap, I forgot all about that," Rosaline sighed. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Actually, Mahiru and I are going shopping tonight, too," Sakuya said. "Is it cool if we come with you?"

"I, uh, yeah, sure," she finally managed to say.

Maybe she had made friends too fast, that or these guys were practically shameless. She had a feeling she would have to get used to the pushiness, but she had had friends like that before.

Ryusei and Koyuki joined with Mahiru's invite. Dealing with guys in the past, Rosaline wasn't sure how much they would actually get done or if Mahiru and Sakuya would get food they could live on.

As the group walked toward the train station, Rosaline's attention was taken by a tv with the news on it. She frowned as she crossed her arms over her chest. Victor Robinson had been a Broadway actor that had traveled all over. Just before she moved to Japan, she had worked on stage with him. He had been a good friend of hers, but they lost touch when she moved. That didn't make his death hurt less.

Rosaline jumped when someone touched her. She tried to focus on Sakuya, but the tears blurred her vision. She blinked a few times, wiping the water from her face, smiling at his concern. "I'm fine," she assured. "I was a fan."

He smiled, "Cmon, it's getting late. The market doesn't stay open all night, you know."

They caught up with the others, all noticing her tear stained face. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I was a fan of the actor that died," she explained sheepishly.

The three shared an uncomfortable look. She frowned slightly, "What's wrong?"

"You just don't look the type to be into that kind of stuff," Mahiru said as he scratched the back of his head.

"What kind of stuff? I like Shakespeare and musicals. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Oh," all three of them realized.

"So, that's not the serial rapist," Ryusei muttered to himself as he put his hands in his jacket pockets.

She narrowed her eyes at them, but didn't push the subject.

Their venture to the store continued as they stepped into the slightly chilly store. Before Sakuya could even fight her, his jacket was off and on Rosaline to keep her warm. She didn't say a word as she grabbed a shopping cart and began her journey through the store to get food. Mahiru grabbed one as well, following her as she began looking through the produce.

"I am never shopping with you again," Sakuya groaned as they walked out.

"You didn't have to stay," Rosaline argued as she pulled Sakuya's jacket off and handed it to him.

"You had my jacket," he argued.

"It was three hours, Rosaline," Ryusei grumbled. "Three hours!"

"You didn't need food, so I don't know why you stayed," Rosaline pointed out. "And I don't need help carrying my bags."

She had at least fifteen bags filled with food, all distributed amongst the gentlemen. Her home was one stop off the station. She could handle that weight for that long, anyone could.

"You live over a mile away," Ryusei argued, "There's no way you could carry all of this."

"Well, if you're going to be that insistent on it, let's go," she sighed.

They grumbled as they followed her to the train. The group looked pretty ridiculous. All of them had at least ten bags each, so she didn't feel so bad since the rest was for Mahiru and Sakuya.

"You live alone, too, huh?" Koyuki asked.

"Yeah, something like that. My foster parents gave me their deceased son's apartment," she lied. It wasn't entirely a lie. The people that had given it to her simply weren't her foster parents, but it had been the apartment of their deceased son. When she first moved to the city, he allowed her to stay with him, on behalf of his parents' recommendation that she would be a good tenant.

"Just gave it to you? That's must be nice," he sighed.

"It was incredibly kind of them, but I must warn you, the place is a bit...different."

The boys soon found out what she was talking about when they walked into the bachelor pad. There were leather chairs and suede couches. The entire floor was dark wood, the only break being an off white rug under a glass coffee table.

"This is very..."

"He was definitely a bachelor," she stated, making Mahiru feel a bit better about his opinion. After he died, she didn't have the heart to redecorate.

"Reminds me of your home," Ryusei said as he nudged Mahiru.

"I'm not a bachelor!" Mahiru yelled as they put all the bags down to sort through which ones belonged to Rosaline.

"It's your uncle," Ryusei explained with a smirk. "I bet he gets a lot of action while traveling."

"Can we not talk about my uncle's sex life?" Mahiru growled.

Rosaline smiled slightly. They were good, fun people. If they could get past her looks and just let her be their friend, everything would be okay. She would like to have friends that didn't judge her on her looks, just once.

"Did someone paint you?" Koyuki asked.

Rosaline looked at the painting she had yet to sell. It was a blond woman in a sky blue dress with a red amulet around her neck, laying on a field of jasmine. There was an orange and pink flower tucked by her ear.

"No. I don't know who that is," she lied. "I saw her in a history book once before, a nameless princess that was executed. I've been trying to sell it, but no one wants it."

"What did you name it?"

"Ophelia's Meadow, after the garden in my home town," she answered, almost robotically. It had been a question asked many times.

"Who's Ophelia?"

"The Princess. She seemed important enough to paint, though she was lost in time."

"Did you do some research on her?" Mahiru asked.

"Too much for too long. The image led me to a book series where the author wrote historically accurate pieces about the princess, though there was no name. The only reason she had the information on the princess was because of a study done years ago about her and a lot of speculation on why the princess was killed. The author of that study wrote something that just stayed with me. 'In God's name cheerly on, courageous friends, To reap the harvest of perpetual peace By this one bloody trial of sharp war.' A quote from Shakespeare. She was executed in the name of peace, but the war still happened."

"What's the book series?" Koyuki asked.

"The Purpose of Greed. To make the series more interesting, the author shoved vampires into the story. If the ending wouldn't kill your soul, I would tell you to read it, despite it being romance. It's almost humorous."

"You don't look like a romance novelist either," Ryusei narrowed his eyes.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't jump to conclusions before getting to know someone," Rosaline sassed.

"We should get going," Mahiru said with a yawn. "We'll see you tomorrow."

She locked the door behind them before heading to put her groceries away. They had become friends in so fast a time. It was odd, but not the worst. Maybe Japan wasn't so bad after all.

As the weeks passed, Rosaline appeared to be the perfect student. Having lived through most of the history that was being taught, it was easy to ignore that class as well as math, English and literature. It seemed even science hadn't changed that much since her last visit.

"How did you get a perfect score again?!" Sakuya groaned when he pulled the perfect score from her hands. Her friends were struggling in math, but she tried to help them best she could. She had never been a good teacher.

"You still scored pretty high," Rosaline pointed out as she took her paper back. "I'm just not a tutor, or I would be able to help."

"It's Koyuki that's struggling," he said. "He didn't score above a sixty."

She frowned a bit, "Ryusei can teach him. He knows what to do."

"Yeah, Ryusei can't teach either."

Her attention moved to the window where the clouds were starting to cover up the sky. It was starting to get colder, and she would have to wear a lot of clothes to school. She wasn't worried about the stares, only the fact she could possibly transform in the middle of class.

"Winter is coming faster than I thought," she said.

"Are you going to start stealing everyone's jackets?"

"No, I'll be bringing my own. Maybe a space heater, too," she joked.

Though the cold put her at a high risk of discovery, she still enjoyed it, or the staying inside part. She loved the warm food she got to cook, all memories of a better time. She couldn't remember how many times she had almost burned down a house centuries ago due to the fact she would spontaneously transform due to the cold. It was always in the middle of cooking.

Soon, it became cold outside. Rosaline was no longer wearing the skirt required of the dress code, but thick snow pants, the same color of the skirt. She also wore a large orange parka, just in case. It seemed to bother everyone how large and thick the jacket was, and while everyone else was comfortable, she was still trying to stay warm.

"Well, winter break is almost here," Mahiru smiled as he took his seat by Rosaline. "What are you going to be doing?" He asked her.

"After I go shopping, I'll be a shut in until school starts again."

"You're just going to be alone that whole time? What about your foster parents?"

"They're in New Zealand on a cruise, so I couldn't go," she lied again, grumbling over the thought of a warm island.

She had experienced a couple of cruises, both having snuck on in her animal form. They were fun. For food than she ever dreamed of eating, movies, plays, and best of all, desperate people looking for love. Her entertainment had been watching people's the bars hooking up, only to move on to a new person the next night. It was as though they were just passing some food around the table with how nonchalant they acted.

"I'll probably be alone, too, and so will Sakuya, so why don't we come over and hang out?" Mahiru suggested. "It would suck to spend Christmas alone."

"I suppose that isn't ideal," she mumbled.

She hadn't celebrated Christmas in years. All she knew was there were presents, and that meant she had to buy some. Thankfully, she knew what to get them, or she wouldn't have agreed.

Mahiru's face lit up, "Alright! What about before then? Do you want to meet up some time?"

"I'll be able to in a few days. Someone is interested in Ophelia's Meadow, and they want to talk price after they look at it."

"That's great! How much are you asking?"

"$500," she replied as she rubbed the back of her neck. "And he's willing to pay it, but he wants to personally see the picture, and he wants to hear the story behind the picture. I think he's buying it for someone."

"Must be his wife or something, for him to be ready to drop that type of money on a painting," Ryusei said.

"It looks like a master painted it, though," Koyuki argued. "That could probably sell for millions under a famous artist's name."

"Thank you, Koyuki," Rosaline beamed.

It had been years since she heard a compliment like that about her work. Her art was different than just about anything out there at the time. It would either be a black and white painting with one color to be highlighted throughout the piece, or there was a painting with a large blank spot, forming some sort of silhouette, either in the center or focusing all of the art onto a single spot of the canvas to make the white space be the picture.

"Before her time" she had been called. She had pieces in small museums and a few were even made into posters. With Rosie G being the signature on the painting, there was no tracing it to he or any of her past aliases.

"Alright, well, after you meet with him, call me," Mahiru smiled.

She nodded, her face falling as she looked to the cold weather. There was snow falling and she had forgotten a scarf. There was no avoiding a transformation. Unless she store hopped the entire way to the train, she would have to accept a transformation and hope no one would see.

"You can't be that upset over some snow," Sakuya teased as he walked to her side. "It's actually nice."

"It's going to be cold," Rosaline frowned. "I hate the cold."

He laughed as he put his arm around her shoulders, "It's not that bad. You'll be fine!"

She laughed, "Yeah right. You're going to find me dead, frozen in an alley somewhere."

"Hey, Sakuya!"

He spun around, dragging Rosaline along as they grinned at his girlfriend, Kimiko. There was no secret that Kimiko hated Rosaline, though Rosaline clearly couldn't care less. She kept her friends close to her heart, but still at arms length. They would die one day, while she would continue continue on.

"Hey, Kimi!" He greeted, releasing Rosaline so he could hug her.

The black haired girl snuggled into his embrace, her grey eyes glaring at Rosaline who kept her grin. Her grin fell when she started kissing him right in the middle of the room. She was far from jealous. Unable to forgive her mother, she could barely stand watching couples. It was just a lie, anyway. One of them would leave for someone else who can give them what they want.

"So, you are jealous?" Koyuki asked.

Rosaline looked at the tall teen, confused on what he was talking about, "Jealous of what?"

"Sakuya and Kimiko."

"No," she replied slowly, glancing over at the couple. "My parents weren't the greatest people, and it's ruined my outlook on relationships. I'm not jealous, I just have no interest in watching. I'm not into that."

"What are you into?" Koyuki asked. He turned very red and began stuttering, "I-I-I mean, um, I-I, um, things! N-n-not in men, but things!"

"I like Shakespeare. Art, books, and music, too. Movies are alright, and I'm still trying to find video games I'm interested in. I'm a bit behind the times," she smiled sheepishly.

"You sure do like boring things," Ryusei commented as he folded his arms behind his head. "You're not into sports?"

"Is fishing a sport? I like deep sea fishing."

He laughed, "You're not strong enough for that. What would you do? Drive the boat?"

"Hey, take that back. I caught a swordfish one time!"

"Prove it," he smirked.

She grumbled as she started searching through her bag for her phone. She had practically emptied out her bag before she found the stupid technology. Scrolling through all her pictures, she tried to find the video from a few years ago of her catching the swordfish. She had been with an old friend of hers from the village. After her first time, she would go with whoever would take her, as often as possible.

"Get a room," Mahiru shouted as Rosaline passed her phone to Ryusei.

She looked over to Sakuya and Kimiko who were cuddle up in a desk, talking with Kimiko's friends.

"It's a shame what relationships can do," Rosaline said, looking out the window.

"Have you ever been in a relationship?" Mahiru asked.

"Once, and it was a mistake I don't plan to make again."

"It's just because she is a closet lesbian," Kimiko announced loudly.

"Even if that was true, you're still unworthy of me," Rosaline fired back coolly. "I have standards, and I haven't met anyone that can meet them."

Like living forever. She remembered how emotionally traumatic the relationship had been, when she lived with him until he died. Even after three hundred years, she still hadn't gotten over it. Her father was the same way.

"You have standards?" Ryusei joked as he returned her phone.

"Even the best of us have to be friends with peasants so we don't forget who we are," Rosaline grinned.

"You sure do think highly of yourself," Kimiko smirked. "Mahiru, how do you deal with someone like that?"

Mahiru laughed as he put his arm around Rosaline's shoulder, "Her looks make up for whatever insult she throws our way."

Rosaline laughed as she placed her hand over her heart, "Ouch, right in my pride."

The guys knew she didn't like being favored by her looks, though it definitely happened. As far as she knew, their interests in her was only skin deep and never developed into anything serious, though she did criticize girls they were interested in.

However, her appearance was also a thorn in Kimiko's side. Before Rosaline, Kimiko had been the center of attention, and while Rosaline pushed away anyone that tried to hit on her, she would welcome a friend. That sent guys back to Kimiko, but Kimiko specifically wanted Mahiru, and that was no secret. Even poor Sakuya knew, but that didn't seem to bother him.

They were on a time limit after all.

Though, she was starting to suspect something out of Sakuya. He was different somehow. On occasion he would say strange phrases, hinting he was older than he appeared. He could talk about different subjects that had happened within the past twenty years or so and sound like he had been there.

Her phone vibrated. She looked at the name on the phone and smiled a bit. Rosen Kranz, the man interested in her painting was in town.