Howdy, guys! This is my first shoujo fic in a while, so please don't attack it. I know it's not all that great, especially in the beginning, but I figure those who are reading this have more than likely read at least part of the series, so they know what the main characters look like and I don't have to go into too much detail. Anyway, please review with what you did/didn't like.

By the way, the lyrics I use as the summary come from Gackt's song "Last Song."


A small cluster of students mulled about a corner of the courtyard. Their uniforms didn't match; they didn't belong to the school. What are they doing here? was the thought that flew through the minds of the three third-years walking down the path toward the dorms from the cafeteria. The three paused a short distance away and stood, watching and listening, as the cluster of boys—still in middle school, by the look of them—snickered and shrieked with laughter and encouragement. The tallest of the three belongers, a lanky blonde,strode towards them leisurely. He leaned over their bent backs to peer at what they were doing. His eyes widened and he gasped at the sight of the poor mangled creature in their midst.

"You little bastards!" he shrieked and grabbed the nearest boy. The rest scattered.

"Nakatsu, what the hell are you doing?" His two friends came running.

He was shaking the boy, and shaking with anger himself. He jerked his head toward where the boys had huddled. "See what they were doing!"

The two others, a boy and a girl, looked, and they, too, began shaking with indignation. The girl gathered the quaking creature up into her arms. "I'm taking it back to our room, Sano," she said quietly. Her voice was hard as stone and just as jagged. Her roommate nodded and let her go.

Ashiya Mizuki cradled the fallen creature in her arms. In her three years of studying at Osaka High, a private all-boys academy, she'd never seen boys act so cruelly and immaturely. A spark of anger had built up inside her, warming her stomach from the cold disbelief that had settled at the sight of their inhumane behaviour. After half of her journey back to the dorm, however, the anger, too, had dissipated, and she now harbored intense maternal feelings toward the animal. But it was badly hurt; what could she possibly do?

Mizuki turned to the only person who may know what she should do. Peering this way and that, she made sure she was alone and ducked down an empty corridor.

"Doctor!" she wailed, throwing open the door. "Doctor, I need your help!"

Umeda Hokuto jumped and dropped the bottle of isopropyl alcohol he'd been pouring into smaller bottles for the classroom first-aid kits. Shards of glass littered the floor at his feet, and the alcohol soaked into the leather of his boots. Now he smelled more like a hospital than merely a hospital wing. He sighed, slammed his open hands on the countertop, and whirled to face her. "What is it now, Ashiya?"

He was confronted with the bleeding and injured animal. Umeda stood there a moment, blinking stupidly at it. "A kitten?"

"Can you help it, Doctor Umeda?" she asked anxiously, placing it on the counter gingerly. Absently she swept the bandages, cotton balls, and other miscellaneous items from the immediate area. Umeda glanced at the further mess she was making with raised eyebrows and a tightened mouth, then went to the shivering creature on the marble-top.

While Mizuki explained about the boys tormenting the cat, Umeda looked it over. Several cuts, shallow and deep alike, were buried beneath the fuzzy silver fur. The blood seeping from those wounds was matting, making it more difficult to determine the exact extent of its injuries. Mizuki stood by anxiously. The cat opened bewitching amber eyes and let out a pathetic whimper. It just lay there on the counter as if already tired of the world and life with it. Privately Mizuki agreed with the animal's silent declaration.

"She doesn't have any broken bones," the doctor said at long last, "but she does have some deep scrapes. They need to be looked at; she'll probably need stitches. You'll have to take her to a vet."

"But I don't know any veterinarians!" Mizuki protested, crestfallen. Water welled in her eyes. "Can't you do anything, doctor?"

He shook his head. "I'm not a vet, Ashiya. What do you expect me to do?"

"Something!" she shouted. "It needs help! Please!" The tears spilled down her cheeks. "Help her, please."

Umeda gave a long-suffering sigh and shoved his hand through his hair nearly knocking his glasses off in the process. His eyes darted back and forth from nothing to nothing as he considered her plea and the life of the animal on his counter. If he did nothing, the cat would surely die, but chances were equally likely that she would die even with his help. It was a fifty-fifty chance.

He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and sighed again. "There's no guarantee she'll pull through, even if I do try," he said slowly.

"At least you'll have tried."

He couldn't argue with that. Umeda sighed again, then stalked to the door and locked it. "Wash your hands, and rub down the countertop with alcohol. Fetch some gloves from the cabinet. I can't believe I'm doing this."

Nearly an hour had passed before Mizuki finally left the hospital wing. The mess she'd created had been cleaned, and the cat was resting in Umeda's office, still asleep from their homemade anesthesia. She'd played doctor's aid, fetching Umeda's tools and equipment while he worked. Several times he'd complained and whined about the crazy things she'd made him do over her stay at the school, but she couldn't help but think to herself that he always did everything in his power to help her, no matter how half-baked her plans were.

"I'll keep her here overnight to watch her," Umeda had said at their parting. "I don't know what you'll do with it, though—there's a strict no-animal rule in the dorms."

"We'll think of something," she'd answered.

"Ashiya, this is serious. You could get kicked out of the dorm, at the very least, suspended at the very most, if you're caught."

"What about Yujiro?"

"He doesn't live in the actual dorm." Umeda brushed his reddish hair back from his eyes again. "And if you do get caught, I swear I will kill you if you even mention I had any part in this scheme."

She nodded and hugged him. "Thank you, doctor."

Umeda stood there for a moment, then awkwardly patted her back. "Girls are so much hassle," he muttered, then sent her on her way.

Mizuki sighed and opened the door to her room. She wasn't surprised to see Nakatsu and Sano lounging around the room, waiting for her.

Nakatsu looked up, then launched himself at her. "Mizuki, I was so worried!" He burst into tears. "Don't ever scare me like that! You just disappeared!"

A vein pulsed in Sano's forehead, and he punched Nakatsu in the back of the head. "Knock it off, Nakatsu. Mizuki's not your slave-boy."

Mizuki laughed, a little strained. "It's okay, Sano. I was with Umeda. He was helping me with the cat."

Nakatsu glanced up. "Speaking of, where is it?"

"Umeda's keeping it overnight for observation." Suddenly she was exhausted. Mizuki fell back across Sano's bed and threw her arm over her eyes. "She was hurt pretty bad, but she'll probably pull through."

Sano sat down beside her. "What do you want to do with it?"

She peered at him from behind her wrist. "Can we keep it?"

Nakatsu pulled the desk chair over and sat in it backwards. "We could take turns taking care of it."

"Isn't there a rule about pets, though?"

Mizuki nodded. "Umeda warned me. We could get suspended from school in the worst-case scenario."

"If we get caught," Nakatsu qualified quickly. Mizuki nodded and looked at Sano. It was up to him.

Sano sighed and rubbed his eyes. "What other choice do we have? We can't just abandon it."

There came a knock at the door, disrupting their conversation. Nanba Minami stuck his head in the doorway. "Ashiya, you have a parcel."

Sano raised his eyebrows. "Another?"

"This is… the fifth one? In two weeks?" Nakatsu watched Mizuki cross the room and take the box from Nanba. "Your brother again?"

Nanba invited himself in as the four crowded around the box. Mizuki slid a pocket-knife through the tape securing the envelope to the box. As with the other four, there was a letter in the envelope. Shizuki had written in English, and his handwriting was deplorable under best circumstances, so she had no problem reading it in front of them. If Shizuki spilled any of her secrets, like that she was a girl hiding in a boy's academy, they wouldn't know it.

She skimmed through the letter. "He says it's a laptop computer, and he set me up an email account."

"Another computer?" Nakatsu whistled under his breath. Shizuki had already sent her two desktops, and a cell phone. All he would say as to his motives for such elaborate and expensive gifts was that something had happened that made him appreciate his family all the more. The fourth box had been massive, containing her favourite cookies, candies, and snacks. As for the computers, she'd set one up in hers and Sano's room, while she'd given the other to Nakatsu. Both had internet access.

Sano waded through the pink and blue Styrofoam packing peanuts to uncover the sleek, two-inch-thick machine. He set it on the desk beside the desktop and opened it. A slip of yellow paper fluttered down to the floor. Mizuki picked it up.

"It's an English email account and password," she said. "Apparently he set this up with wireless satellite internet access." She dragged the chair back to the desk and sat down.

Nanba leaned over her shoulder as she punched in the address of the email site. "You've got mail," he murmured in her ear. She nodded absently.

Nakatsu shoved Nanba's head away from Mizuki's ear. "Back off. Don't be so touchy-feely with him!"

Sano hit him again. "You, too!" A vein pulsed in his forehead. He knew Mizuki's secret, and it irked him whenever anybody got too close to her. She's too naïve for her own good.

But she was paying them no mind. She was reading one of the two emails in her inbox. The first was from an email address she did not recognize, the other from Shizuki. She decided the latter could wait—she clicked on the first by tapping the mouse square gently. What opened didn't make sense. Her brain read the lines of English text, but it did not compute, made no sense. She opened the second.

Sano recognized Shizuki's name and a few of the English words, but not enough to make any sense of the email. Nakatsu and Nanba were wrestling in the back of the room over who had the right to do what and why: they were no use. He rested his chin almost absently on the top of her head as he stared blankly at the screen. "What's it say?"

"My brother's getting married," she answered almost numbly. "I don't believe it…"

"He seemed nice enough; why shouldn't he be married?"

"No, that's not it. He sent me a plane ticket."

The boys stopped fighting and looked at her questioningly.

"I'm to be the best man at the wedding," she said. "He's making me go back to America."