Disclaimer: I don't own Princess Princess. Mikiyo Tsuda and Studio Deen do.

This story is being beta read by the wonderful Red-Headed Psychopaths Wanted, so I'd like to give her special thanks! I really appreciate all the help! (:

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"Shihoudani! Do you really have to have the window open?" Mikoto hunched farther down in his seat and fixed the blond boy with an exasperated expression. Yuujirou, who was stretched leisurely across his seat on the other side of the train's compartment, shifted slightly and gave him a look.

"Honestly, Mikoto, can you restrain yourself for five minutes? We'll be there soon."

"But the wind is freezing when we're moving this fast!" Mikoto scowled at his companion, who countered the look with a smirk.

"Really, Miko-chan. If you keep whining like this, do you really think I'm ever going to travel with you again?" the blond's mouth twitched slightly, but he managed to keep from chuckling and ruining Mikoto's pouty mood by force of sheer willpower. If he let on to Mikoto that he wasn't serious, his fun for the remainder of the trip would be shot. It was a delicate procedure, and Yuujirou had perfected it well over the course of the previous school year. Keep Mikoto panicking, and you had high-quality entertainment for any extended period of time.

"I don't care! I don't want to be traveling with you, anyway!" Mikoto's frown deepened. "And I've told you a million times… don't call me Miko-chan!"

A cart of refreshments rolled by, and Yuujirou flashed the attendant who pushed it a charming smile (Mikoto sullied when he realized that it was probably due to the fact that she had quite large breasts) before turning back to his companion, a newly acquired cherry tart in his hands, and gave him a long stare with just a trace of a telltale smirk marking his features.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I must have forgotten, Miko-chan," Yuujirou told him, turning his gaze out the window once again as he propped an elbow on the sill and rested his chin on his hand. The cool spring air that rushed past his face was invigorating, much more pleasant than the smell of other people's sweat and lipstick that filled the air inside the train compartment, a permanent scent that seemed to have seeped into every surface. He gave a satisfied smile at the sound of Mikoto's groan of frustration and kept his eyes fixed on the passing trees and buildings.

"Ahg! You called me Miko-chan again…" the fight had gone out of Mikoto's voice and all that was left was irritation and temporary defeat. Yuujirou held back a giggle.

"Oh, did I? I'm sorry, I didn't realize I said that, Miko-chan."

"WAAAHG!"

XXX

The thing Toru liked best about the spring was rain.

He wasn't exactly sure if it was something unnatural to be fond of; Yuujirou was constantly complaining about it, and Sayaka didn't seem to particularly enjoy it either. And Mikoto hated it, but that didn't count for much because with the right prompting, Mikoto could be driven to hate just about anything.

Toru decided wondering was a waste of time and instead kept his eyes focused on the sky. He did realize that in theory, being the kind of person who would lie there actually waiting for rain made him a dull sort of person. This was a bit depressing in itself, but it really couldn't be helped. It was hard not to turn a bit dull over the course of two weeks at home.

Never in his life had Toru wished that a vacation would end, but at the moment he would give up a substantial portion of his own skin to be back at Fujimori, charging head-on into another year of colorful campus life. Things were always interesting at the school, despite the rigorous amount of homework he had been given the previous year (and the workload that promised to be even larger this time around). And then it hit him, as it had so many times over the uneventful spring break, that as a second year he would no longer be a Princess. This filled him with a small sense of loss, though it would be a relief to no longer worry about shaving his legs. Being a Princess was what had managed to keep his mind off of problems at home the year before, and now if any arose, he really wasn't sure if homework was going to be a large enough distraction.

And then there was the fact that the Princess job had been what kept him so closely linked to Yuujirou and Mikoto. Chances were he wouldn't be lucky enough to be in the same class as Yuujirou again, and he could feel the dim sense of falling at the realization that this year there was a possibility that he would barely see them. So far away from his aunt and uncle, Yuujirou, Mikoto, and Akira had turned into a kind of makeshift family that he could put faith in. And though he was almost positive he would be able to find some way to see them regularly, he couldn't shake away the deep pit of dread that seeded itself in his stomach, burrowing in deep and refusing to be shaken off.

"It's not going to rain…" he muttered, staring up at the perfect blue sky above him. A few fluffy white clouds floated unthreateningly past, but other than that the sunny world was broken by nothing more than the shadows of the trees. He shivered inadvertently. There was something about the very thought of it all, coupled with the breeze that was not as forgiving as a spring breeze should have been, that filled him with ice for short spurts and then released him back to the warmth to the current moment, his back pressed into the soft, rapidly growing emerald grass.

The face that swam into his vision then was nearly enough to make him scream; he definitely hadn't expected someone to follow him this far from the house, back into the undeveloped land that would undoubtedly someday soon give way to apartment complexes. And what was even more shocking was that the head was not framed in Sayaka's short black hair, but in golden hair that gleamed luridly in the bright sun.

"Y-Yuujirou…" he muttered, unable to shake away his shock as he slowly pulled himself into a sitting position and stared at Yuujirou and the redhead who stood behind him. "Mikoto! What are you two doing here?"

"What? Saying that after we came all this way to see you? You ungrateful bastard!" Yuujirou said dramatically, pretending to swoon as he tossed something Toru's way. It bounced off of his chest and he picked it up before it could get dirty. It was a cherry tart wrapped in a napkin.

"Let me rephrase," Toru climbed to his feet and fixed the other two with a smile. "Why are you here? Did you just get a random urge to show up and throw pastries at me?"

"That's pretty much it," Yuujirou said with a shrug, glancing back at Mikoto, who stood several feet behind him and kept shifting the bag over his shoulder. "Right, Miko-chan?"

"Ah! Don't call me that, Shihoudani!"

Yuujirou ignored him. "Actually, we came because I couldn't stand being at home anymore, and we haven't seen you all break, since you live all the way out here. We figured we could all take the train back to school on Monday together. What was with the sudden decision to go home, anyway?"

Toru shrugged, glancing at the feathery clouds for a moment before answering. "I guess it was because I felt bad for never going back over summer. Uncle said they'd all really missed me, so I decided I owed this to them at the very least."

Several feet away, Mikoto stood quaking under the turbulence of his personal black cloud, on the verge of snapping.

"Oi, Mikoto, what's with you?" Yuujirou asked, shaking the redhead slightly.

Mikoto raised his pink grapefruit eyes slowly, still seething in a cloud of melodramatic irritation and pointed a single finger at Yuujirou. "You probably already knew this, Kouno, but that guy went home for break too! And he lives six blocks away from me! Six blocks! He's been torturing me this whole time and I can't get any peace and quiet at all! I can't take it anymore!" Mikoto clutched handfulls of his hair (an indiscriminate blend of pink, red, and orange) and groaned.

Yuujirou gave him an unaffected glance. "I didn't bother you that much." he shrugged and turned back to Toru. "Mikoto is just cranky because I dragged him away from his precious girlfriend to see the friend he's been neglecting all break. It's a shame, Mikoto. And you call yourself his friend?"

Mikoto didn't answer. Shooting Yuujirou a scowl, he turned and stalked off in the other direction, only to have Yuujirou follow him.

"Hey Mikoto, you can't just abandon your poor friends like this! What would Megumi-san think?" he called, following close behind the aggravated teen. Toru laughed and followed them, happy that at least for the time being, his world had fallen back into place.

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More to come soon…

Note: I didn't know whether to base this on the manga or the anime, so I decided on a combination of both. That explains why Toru's name is spelled as a combination of the manga spelling (Tohru) and the anime spelling (Tooru). The story will still make sense if you haven't read the manga, for the most part.

Also, the school year starts after the two-week spring break in Japan, so the 'break' in here is essentially what summer vacation would be in the US; the break between school years.