A/N: How are you folks? ;) Hope you're all doing fine ;) As I've said last time, there's a sequel to Womanizer. We are going to put a real ending to the story in here. The night after I posted the last chapter, I remember that some chapter titles for a sequel to Circus (yup, I'm thinking far ahead haha ;) crossed my mind. Well, who knows if I could write it...?

Anyway, Circus has only 3 chapters. I don't think I will add more for this story even if there are a lot of possible titles that could be used for each chapter (because I don't feel like adding anymore haha ;)

And to tell you the truth, I almost decided to post a different story and not Circus yet haha ;) I guess I was excited that time when I was reading the Little By Little 2. No, it's not a sequel to Little By Little. It's more like in a way, things progressed in the story little by little, too. And I wasn't in the mood to think of a different title when I wrote it over a year ago ;) You would probably read it, too. For now, let's focus on Circus.

Now then, as usual, I don't own Sachiko, Yumi and co.. And, read at your own risk, folks!

Can you believe it, it's my 25th story for MSGM here in FFN? You know, I've received a lot of messages from people here in FFN (not including the reviews if I might add) and realized that there are probably hundreds of them. Some still posts comments/reviews/PMs when I post stories, and there are also new folks ;) People have been nice to me here, especially fellow MSGM fans ;) That's why I would never abandon a story here ;)

"Circus"

-Arvendell-

Chapter 1. Acrobat

Fukuzawa Yumi felt like she was walking in a thin rope. A couple of days had passed since the incident with her Onee-sama, Ogasawara Sachiko, at the Rose Mansion and yet she hadn't fully grasped what it was all about. She remembered everything clearly like it was only yesterday.

"You womanizer," Sachiko said accusingly.

"W-what? Onee-sama, I don't understand you at all," Yumi squeaked, tears now leaking in her eyes. She was confused, worried, and scared of Sachiko's actions and the things that left her lips made her feel uncomfortable.

"Maybe this, you would understand," Sachiko said as she pulled the surprised Yumi and kissed her on the lips. Despite her anger, Sachiko noticed how soft the lips that were pressed into hers. This must be what floating in the clouds felt like. The feel of Yumi's lips on hers melted Sachiko's anger.

"Yumi..."

The kiss went on for several seconds with Yumi in a frozen state. Her brain couldn't process what was happening. Before she could she react, Sachiko pulled away in shock.

"What have I done?" Sachiko asked herself with mortification. Without anger clouding her judgement, she finally realized what was happening, what she was doing. She looked at the frozen Yumi and seeing her shocked and teary-eyed face, she jumped into a conclusion and did something that she hadn't done before to Yumi. She turned and fled the room, leaving Yumi to her confused self.

Yumi sat in a chair absently, her knees feeling weak. She was trembling. She raised her hand and touched her lips. Her mind couldn't think of anything coherent except one thing.

Did Sachiko just kiss her?

After that incident, Sachiko became indifferent. She had put a wall around her that Yumi couldn't penetrate. Yumi couldn't make out any of it. She couldn't understand anything that had happened. One moment Sachiko was smiling, and then she was angry, and then she was kissing her, and then she was mortified, and then she was gone.

Yumi had spent sleepless nights since that day, thinking about Sachiko, her behaviour, her words. For some reason, Sachiko was angry about something that she had done. What had triggered Sachiko's explosion?

"It was the mention of Sei-sama...And then she got angrier when I mentioned Touko-chan and Kanako-chan...She kept on saying about kissing."

At the mention of the kiss, Yumi's face flamed. She brought a finger to her lips. She could still feel Sachiko's lips on hers. Sachiko had very soft lips. No matter the circumstances, the fact that Sachiko had kissed her lips made her insides in frenzy.

'Onee-sama kissed me...Onee-sama's lips touched mine...Onee-sama...'

Before Yumi's imagination could go wild, she forcefully brought her attention back into focus.

"What kiss was Onee-sama talking about? I haven't kissed anyone...except Sei-sama before she graduated. But that wasn't on her lips! Was that what Onee-sama talking about?"

Somehow though, Yumi didn't think that it was so.

"And what did she mean by womanizer?"

Sachiko had said that she was a womanizer, which shocked her. She didn't even know what that word means, though she sensed by the way that Sachiko said it that it wasn't something positive. She had looked for its meaning, and found that it said that a womanizer was a habitual seducer of women. It surprised her that Sachiko knew such a word. It surprised her even more that Sachiko called her like that!

She hadn't seduced anyone!

Especially women!

That was what she knew.

Or had she?

Yumi thought as hard as she could, but couldn't come up with anything. Frustrated, she clenched tight on the pencil in her hand, breaking it in the process. However, the broken pencil went unnoticed as she thought about what she had to do.

She had to talk to Sachiko. That was the first thing that she should do. She had to know what was wrong. She had to know what Sachiko was talking about so she could understand and act accordingly. Only then could she have peace of mind.

But how could she do it?

She didn't know how to act when Sachiko was around these days. Sachiko gave off an aura that clearly said 'leave me alone' or 'don't talk to me'. She was giving a new meaning to unapproachable, intimidating and scary person.

'But still so beautiful...'

Yumi shook her head at her last thoughts. She shouldn't be distracted.

She tried to understand Sachiko's behaviour. Before her explosion in this same place, at the Rose Mansion's meeting room, what had been different with Sachiko?

Sachiko was teasing her about having many fan girls...

Sachiko wanted to help her about Takeshima Tsutako.

And before that day, she had noticed that Sachiko was always in deep thought. However, when she asked her, the latter said that it was nothing that she couldn't handle.

Was it about the Ogasawara family?

Or her reluctant fiancé?

The last question made Yumi frown. Was Kashiwagi Suguru, Sachiko's cousin and fiancé who preferred to be with guys, causing some trouble to Sachiko?

If he was, she wouldn't allow it!

She didn't want Sachiko hurting!

That man should act like a man for once and stood up and break the engagement if he didn't love Sachiko, or any woman for that matter! Sachiko would be better off without him! Sachiko could find someone whom she could live with and would take care of her. Someone who would love her. Someone who...

Yumi paused. She didn't want to think more about Sachiko being with someone. She couldn't. It was hard. It was painful. She wanted Sachiko to be...

Shaking her head, Yumi once again forced herself back to the matter at hand.

Sachiko didn't comment anything about her date with the first years Matsudaira Touko and Hosokawa Kanako. And then she accepted to have a date with her, which they hadn't talked about yet. She wanted that date with her!

Setting that aside, everything seemed to have gone wrong when she mentioned Satou Sei, the former member of the Yamayurikai, in the conversation. She was only teasing Sachiko about being like Sei. However, after that, Sachiko's mood had changed?

Why?

Was Sachiko angry with Sei?

Yumi's musing was cut off when the door of the meeting room opened and revealed Sachiko who paused when their eyes met.

"Good day, Onee-sama," Yumi greeted hesitantly. There was again Sachiko's indifferent demeanour which hurt and saddened her.

"Good day, Yumi. Is everything set for the meeting?" Sachiko asked as she gracefully sat on a chair beside Yumi.

"Y-yes, Onee-sama. Is something still needs to be done that I hadn't?"

Sachiko swept a look at the papers on the table and then said, "No. Everything's here."

Silence enveloped the meeting room. Sachiko started to read the papers while waiting for the others to arrive. Yumi, on the other hand, debated on whether to talk to Sachiko about what was bothering her or not. She looked at Sachiko at the corner of her eyes. Sachiko was reading seriously, like there was nothing wrong with them.

"Onee-sama, about what happened before when we..."

"What is it, Yumi?" Sachiko asked in a quizzical expression that made Yumi almost shout with frustration. Sachiko was really making it hard for her.

"Nothing, Onee-sama..." Yumi said, backing away. She started to read some of the papers in front of her though her mind wasn't on it. She felt like she was someone in a circus where she was an acrobat. She was still learning and wasn't ready to tread on a dangerous rope. She had to be prepared first and be very careful or she might lose her balance and fall and lose everything. That was how she felt with Sachiko around her, so she backed away. Until she learned to be firm, she couldn't ask Sachiko. She had to prepare herself first, prepare for the worst.

A/N: I'll try to update next week once my head is free (hopefully) from thoughts of my report. Can you believe it? It has been postponed several times that it's causing me too much stress. Ah...the waiting is killing me, though I think it was for my own good, too. The postponement was lucky for me also. If it went as scheduled (Sept 25), then I would be in a bad state because I have cough and cold. It's getting better now, and hopefully by Saturday, my throat and nose are fine haha ;) And yeah, I end up doing the entire report. How about that? I did the rest yesterday for 8 hours probably and had robbed me of my rest time :( I was all set to report the whole thing yesterday, but my group mate finally thought about contacting me this morning so I probably won't be alone on Saturday.

Until next time, folks!

Take care!

-27 September 2010-

2:50 PM