Hey guys, I'm back with a new fic. I was sitting in Calculus the other day, and this idea came into my head and wouldn't leave.

Basically, it's about this middle-aged guy and his encounters with nine of the Yamayurikai members.

Thanks for all of you have reviewed on my stories! All of you are awesome! If I were able to send you chocolate chips cookies through the internet all would totally have dozens by now, but since I can't, all of you can have an unlimited supply of imaginary cookies :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Maria-sama ga Miteru nor any of its characters. I only own Keiji.

Now on with the story!

Nine Disgruntled Maidens

Keiji waited patiently until his companion was distracted enough to let him take a glance at his watch unnoticed. Great it was 6:30, and his wife had just finished setting dinner on the table about, oh, twenty minutes ago. Now, not only was he going to receive his meal cold, but also his wife.

"I'm sorry it was someone calling me, but it wasn't important." The green-eyed girl apologized as she placed her phone back into her purse. Keiji gave her a short nod as he took a sip of his coffee, wondering how he got himself in this position.

Oh yeah, the snow.

For the past three hours, snow trickled from the sky, masking the murky grey of Tokyo with a pure white sheet that had children praising their savior from school and the adults cursing their enabler of driving. Keiji, on his part, had no work to do and had decided to spend the day watching action films.

Half way through his first film though, Keiji tried and tried to get the mute button to work, but to no avail did he get it to work on his wife. 'I have been telling you for the past week to go into town and pick up my sister's present' she nagged, and when he told her that he couldn't because it was snowing, she had threatened him in ways that juxtaposed from her docile appearance.

Begrudgingly, he had left their apartment on his way downtown, muttering to himself that his sister-in-law could live one more day without the Japanese version of Breaking Dawn.

Women and that Edward. He would never understand.

After purchasing the book and telling himself there was no point in dropping it on the snow to get his wife angry, Keiji was on his way back home when the siren of coffee lured him away from the path to his wife and toward the death of his sleep-filled night.

He liked coffee, and he epically liked it on cold, wintery days even though his wife would always protest, saying that it was bad for his heart and that tea would be better for him. But she wasn't here at the moment, Keiji concluded, and like a mischievous boy who just gotten away with stealing one of his mother's cookies, he proudly walked into the cafe.

The cafe was filled with people who had the same idea of escaping the cold clutches of Mother Nature and finding comfort in a hot cup of coffee. Conversation and laughter filtered through the dimmed room as a slow jazz piece filled the pauses of silence, and even though Keiji had decided earlier to take his coffee to go, he chose not to. It would be nice to rest up before his one mile trek homeward.

If only the person in front of him would just hurry up.

"I'm sorry, I know it's somewhere in here." The girl apologized as she rummaged through her purse. Keiji's eye twitched. This girl was keeping him away from the coffee he desperately wanted, and he didn't like it one bit.

"I'm sorry. This usually doesn't happen to me." The girl apologized again, and even though the boy behind counter said it was find, Keiji could see the traces of irritation spread across his lips in a thinning line. The line was growing, and the people behind him kept there muttering irritation on the track of a crescendo. It was pitiful watching this frustrated girl only getting more frustrated over a cup of coffee that was suppose to make her feel better than to frustrate her even more.

Keiji couldn't take it anymore. It was as bad as watching his wife squeeze into a pair of size three jeans.

"Here I'll pay for it, and throw in a cup of black coffee." Keiji stated as he moved pass the younger girl, and toward the cash register. The boy behind the counter let out a sigh of relief, and speedily brought out the order, most likely wanting to get the younger girl out of his sight.

Keiji had ignored the younger girl during the transaction, even though he could feel her eyes burning a hole in his back. She seemed to be one those refined types, the ones who didn't like having to rely on anyone for help and her crisp black uniform suggested that she came from money. Lots of money.

Keiji internally sighed as he turned around with both cups in his hand. He really didn't want to be chewed out about how women these days could take care of themselves. That had happened when he made the grave mistake of asking some random woman on the side of the road if she needed help changing her tires. He still got shivers when he thought about it.

Surprisingly, the girl's green eyes held no pensive furry, but a forced politeness that caused Keiji to want to squirm. There was always something foreboding about a woman who tried to mask her emotions.

"Sir you didn't have to pay for me." She humbled herself as she reached for the cup Keiji offered her.

"It's quite alright." Keiji comforted as he gave her a polite smile. "This old man hasn't had the pleasure in buying a pretty girl a cup of coffee in ages." She smiled as if flattered, yet Keiji knew this was a facade. Her eyes held no amusement, only aggravation.

"At least let me make it up to you sir." She prompted. Keiji wanted to roll his eyes. How difficult would it have been to say thank you and leave? That's what most ill-mannered children would do nowadays. Why did he have to come across the one teenager in the world who wanted to repay generous acts? Couldn't she just turn around and pretend he never existed?

Keiji was about to tell her this. Well, not exactly that. Probably a little less bluntly, but he made the mistake of looking into the eye of the emotional storm that was going behind her emerald irises, and he felt his fatherly side urging him to help the poor little girl or at least let her get what she has been holding in off her chest.

Damn his fatherly side. He could have been on his way home right now...

"Well you could keep me company until I finish my coffee miss." Keiji offered, knowing that the younger girl's ladylike manners wouldn't let her decline. The girl hesitated before agreeing. She seemed to be in no mood for company Keiji could tell. Well that made two of them.

As they walked to a table near the window, the cobalt haired girl offered her name.

"I'm Mizuno. Youko Mizuno"

Keiji found himself staring at the girl in awe as she sat down in one of the two mahogany chairs, but quickly shook it away. He didn't need for her to think he was some lecherous old man. But who wouldn't of stared? Her father was one the most prominent lawyers Japan has ever seen, and even though money would be thrown at him from all sorts of directions, he would only select cases that he believed in. He had gained the respect of the citizens of Japan that way, even Keiji's.

As he glanced at her, he realized she was a part of a rising dynasty, and he felt a certain pride for witnessing what he believed as history in the making.

"I'm Noto. Keiji Noto." Keiji offered as he took his seat, nothing else would come to mind.

So that's where he was now. Sitting across a disgruntled teenager with a cooling cup of coffee in his hand, wondering exactly how was his wife going to punish him. That is, until he heard only silence coming from his companion.

Youko couldn't concentrate on the weirdness life threw at her. Never did she fathom that she would allow some middle age man to buy her coffee and then sit with him! No she was too distracted for that. College was knocking at her door, and with each day that passed, it was one day closer for her to make a decision on her major, even though she already told everyone she was going to be a lawyer.

"What's bothering you?" Keiji bluntly asked after the moments of silence were eating away at him. She kept avoiding eye contact, and if faith decided that their roads should meet today, Keiji was going to make the most of it.

"There's nothing-" She tried to lie, and had Keiji not had years of experience from dealing with injured high school athletes, he would of believed her cool lie.

"Look it's not going to make you feel better if you lie to me." Keiji reasoned nonchalantly as he stared at Youko straight in the eyes. "I'm a stranger to you. There is no duty, shame, or whatever it is that is keeping you from telling someone you know what's going on. It would make you feel a whole lot better, and if it pleases you to hear, you can rest assured that I won't give a damn about it once I leave this cafe."

Youko smiled at the older gentleman's reasoning. It sounded like something that Sei would say. But as Keiji waited for her answer, Youko realized talking to Keiji might not hurt so much. But could she risk it?

"It'll seem silly to you." Youko said as she waved her hand in the air, dismissing the matter as she sipped her coffee with her free hand. Keiji's eyebrow twitched. Why were woman so stubborn?

"Of course it will, now tell me what's bothering you" Keiji huffed as he leaned back in his chair.

Youko ignored the middle aged man's annoyance and looked out the window, smiling at the scene of a mother playing in snow with a toddler. She enjoyed watching the child's exuberance as his mother sprinkled snow on top of his head. Maybe that would her and her child someday.

Forcing herself to concentrate on the matter that brought her into the cafe, Youko asked, "What do you do for a living Mr. Noto?"

Keiji was caught off guard with the question. He was expecting her to dive into her dilemma and not beat around the bush, but shaking off his moment of befuddlement, Keiji answered.

"I'm a high school sports physician."

"What made you become that?" Youko asked, taking a sip of coffee, watching from the corner of her eye the mother and toddler walking away.

Keiji stared at her for a moment, not knowing exactly where this conversation was going. Wasn't he suppose to be the one with the upper hand?

"I love sports but I was never any good at them, and I enjoy helping people. It's the best of both worlds I think." Keiji answered hesitantly. Youko nodded in understanding.

"I'm going to go into law school to follow in my father's footsteps." Youko stated flatly. Keiji raised his eyebrow. He had expected this from the daughter of a Mizuno, but he didn't expect her to think so little of it that she couldn't even offer any emotion to her future. Not joy. Not doom. Not anything.

"That's admirable, but I'm guessing it's a lot deeper than feeling obligated to make your father happy?'" Keiji concluded, causing Youko to smile to herself. This man was smarter than she gave him credit for.

"You're right. I know father wouldn't care what profession I get into as long as it makes me happy, but I want to do something meaningful in my life." The twinkle in Youko's eyes caused Keiji to briefly wonder if he had ever been as idealistic as her in his youth. He believed once that what he did in life was meaningful, but did it really matter in the long run?

Keiji shook himself away from his thoughts. His mid-life crisis was scheduled for forty-five not forty-two.

"And I'm assuming the thing you want to become isn't meaningful?" Keiji asked, even though he knew he was right.

"It isn't."Youko sighed, but then she cheerfully said "I want to study the arts and become a painter some day."

For a split second, the unemotional mask fell, and Keiji witnessed the gloomy air vanish from sight to revealed a whimsical expression on Youko's face, taking away the maturity she had acquired over the years and for the first time since he met her, she actually looked like a carefree teenager.

"And you don't want to follow that direction because you wouldn't be able to help people?" Keiji deducted as he took a sip of his lukewarm coffee. There was nothing more unholy than lukewarm coffee. Coffee was meant to be hot and later to be discovered by coffee chains, cold. There should no in-between.

"Right. You can go your whole life never needing an artist, but at some point you are going to need a lawyer." Youko teased. Keiji chuckled never hearing anything more true. The girl could be funny who knew?

"It seems that you have already decided. So what's the problem?" The expression of blithe was replaced by a pure mask of discontentment once the words reached Youko's ears.

"I want to be selfish dammit!" Youko yelled as she pounded her fist on the table, garnering some quizzical looks from the other patrons. "All my life, I've done things to help other people, never thinking about myself. Whether it was reaching out to a self-isolated, bitter girl, forcing a dutiful princess to unbound herself from responsibility and to live a little, or thinking of others when in the long run it didn't matter."

"You can't help it; you're a meddler." Youko bitterly smiled at that, flashes of Sei coming into her memory.

"A good friend of mine told me the exact same thing. She said that meddling in other people's affairs was like an addiction for me, but I see as not living in vain. I believe the duty mankind has is to help their follow man." Again, Keiji wondered if this girl was for real. He once had a teenage daughter too some years ago, and never was she as romantic about ideals as Youko was. Maybe the cause for these ideals was that it was a grail in her other wise simplistic life.

"Even if it means sacrificing happiness?" Keiji asked skeptically.

"The medieval mindset in Europe was that life was not about finding happiness, but to do one's duty to God. As time passed by, humans become a bit more hedonistic until the only thing that mattered in life was finding happiness." Youko loftily said, garnering an eye roll from the Keiji.

"And that's the problem isn't it? You want to happiness, but you know you won't find it by being a lawyer. So, it's not a matter of choosing between becoming an artist and a lawyer. It's a matter of choosing guilt and misery." Keiji summed up as he finished his cup of coffee, wondering if the coffee was the only reason for the bitter taste in his mouth.

Youko watched him carefully. So, he understood, surprisingly. When he had forced himself into buying her coffee, she figured him an ass, but now she saw him as someone who could form an unbiased opinion of her. She found herself to be looking at the extremes of everything, but wasn't it human nature to look at the worst and best case scenario, knowing that what ever happens, life will land somewhere in between?

She giggled a bit when she saw him making a disgruntled face. Most likely the cold coffee he had just drowned; Youko had stopped drinking hers awhile ago.

A comfortable silence hung around them for awhile. Both choosing to look out of the window, watching the snow fall from the sky. One thinking that his wife was going to kill him the other trying to choose her words carefully for what she wanted to say next.

"I have this gut feeling that twenty years down the road, I'll look back in my life and think what's the point. I would have been promoted by then, have gotten married, and have a couple of kids. Basically, the life everyone expects for me, but will I be happy? Will I go bed every night thinking of what could have been?" Youko looked at him with pleading eyes as if Keiji had the answer to her problem. The culmination of her distress forcing her to ignore the embarrassment of pleading; she wanted an answer.

"Couldn't you become an artist and donate your money to charity. You would still be helping people out, and you could always do volunteer work." Keiji concluded, but not understanding women (or so his wife says), he knew no matter what offered as a solution she was going to shoot it down because she stubbornly believed there was no grey between the options of black and white.

"I don't want a middle man." Youko rejected. "It wouldn't matter anyways. I could be the next Picasso and have the world on a silver platter, but I wouldn't be happy. I would feel like I was wasting my life being selfish."

"And you don't think lawyers are selfish?" Keiji scoffed. "Even the noblest of lawyers, if they even exist, have to have something to make them continue being lawyers. It's that feeling of self-satisfaction caused from helping people out. If they didn't have that, they would of quite being lawyers long ago." Youko looked at him with squinting eyes. Of course she understood that. She had thought of it countless times, and even the words of gratitude from the people she would help wouldn't fill the void of what could have been. Yet the desire to receive those words kept her from exploring what could have been.

Youko sighed. It was all just one big vicious cycle.

"I understand that," Youko sighed dejectedly, "but I still wouldn't feel right becoming an artist-"

"And you wouldn't be happy being a lawyer." Keiji finished for her. He was tired with this conversation. He wanted to go home and have his cold dinner, and then call his daughter, thanking her for not inducing him with mind numbing headaches like he was experiencing now. (He had forgotten the period when his daughter first started dating.)

"It's between selfishness and selflessness." Youko summed up. The question she had asked herself countless times the past week and nothing she could do could make one seem better than the other.

"I guess the main thing you need to ask yourself is whether happiness comes from selfishness or selflessness." Keiji said as he got up, hoping to keep the annoyance out of his voice. He had done his part and allowed Youko to air his troubles to him. Now it was time for him to go home.

Youko stared at Keiji with concentrating eyes, and as if his words were a match, her green eyes spouted with a new fire. Whether the fire was due to her decision to continue to follow her passion or her to follow in her father's footsteps, he hadn't the clue. So Keiji left with a brief goodbye, giving Youko the time she needed to cut herself with either side of the double-edged sword she had to choose between.

The snow had stopped he noticed, and as Keiji walked in the direction of his apartment, he wondered if her snow of confusion would ever clear up as well.

Please drop a review and tell me what you think :) I think Shimako might be next...Hopefully it will be up by Sunday night!