Disclaimer: i dont own Sailor Moon.

A/N: This is a repost of the first chapter. I've done it over and think I made it better. This has not been Beta'd so please excuse mistakes.

Chapter 1 - Darien Shields

In South Africa for the holidays, the beautiful little town of Knysna was where my grandfather's holiday house resided. Though I was living in Tokyo now I hadn't always. I was notpure Japanese; my father was Japanese and my mother half Japanese and half South African.

I had been born Serena'Bunny' Johnsonin Japan and we had lived in Tokyo for four years, but then we were asked by my mothers dying father to come to South Africa until he died. He had an advanced form of cancer, that should have killed him far quicker then it did, as it was he died slowly and in acutepain. He gave up one rainy day three years ago, after a gruelingten years. After he was gone we took care of his affairs and moved back to Tokyo my father's home.

I had no problem speaking Japanese because my parents had spoken it at home in South Africa, to keep us all in practice. The only problem was I spoke certain syllables of Japanese in a slight South African accent, having to speak English out of home for ten years. My charming way of speaking was cute as my friends told me but it singled me out.

Summer holidays had arrived and it was the last holidays we were ever going to havebefore senior year commenced and there were no more holidays after that, they became 'study breaks'. We had come to my grandfather's old house that he had left to us in his will. I was happy to get away from Tokyo for a while; away from the people and school. School had become unbearable not only was I labeled 'teachers pet' but I had a strange attracting force, not a good one, one which made me the brunt of every joke, sneer, insult and maliciousness. Little did I know that I couldn't get away from it even here. Japan is half a world away, what would the odds be that not only could I not get away from it I would be forced to spend the entire summer holidays with my worst enemy? Darien Shields or more commonly called 'Dare'.

Yes it was an unwelcome twist of fate when he suddenly popped into my life, but one that would change everything for me.

0000

A week into the holidays and I was in my favorite place in the world, beautiful Knysna. Holiday houses in a little retirement village with other little holiday houses, a community pool, tennis courts, and bowling green, strictly for the use of the holiday guests and residents.

It was by this pool that we met again for the first time.

Not that anyone would know it but I had a very toned body that I was immensely proud of,my cornflower blue eyes sparkled with inner fire and the long blond hairI had inherited from my mother's side of the family fell down below my waist.I bought a new bathing suit especially for this holiday. A very small brown bikini, and I self-consciously exalted in, an original Roxy bikini. Flattering every where necessary.

On a beautiful summer day I donned the tiny bikini and made my way with a towel, book, deck chair, sunglasses and sun-cream. I had no intention on going in the water. Fortunately there was no one there yet, well except for a very tanned, very muscled young man at the other end of the pool. He had his back to me so I didn't see his face, and he didn't see me. I sighed as I sat down on a luxurious wooden deck chair vowing silently that I would not be caught up in a summer fling with some guy that only wanted a distraction. Squirting liberal amounts of sun-cream into my hand I spread it onto my body, massaging it in. Completing this I lay back put my sunglasses on and picked up my book.

Time went on and I blissfully lay there tanning myself and immersed in a fantastic novel of a girl in another social class to a man, but they break it down for their love. I sighed again I wished something like that would happen to me. It seemed unfair that that sort of thing only happens in books, because, I reasoned that it would solve a lot of problems in schools;namely mine.

Whilst I was happily involved with my book, the young man had noticed me. Unfortunately he also recognized me. He crept up next to my chair, which was calamitously close to the water, and did a bomb dive straight over my chair and into the water. I looked up alarmed when I saw his shadow loom over me, then stood up in fright as the water cascaded over me soaking me, my book and my dignity. I stood with my hands on my hips glaring at the back of the young man that had trashed my tranquility, and suddenly, too suddenly he turned around and I was abruptly eye to eye with a laughing Darien Shields. My school tormenter.

I was so shocked I promptly sat down again. Fortunately I hadn't moved away from my deck chair.

"You!" I yelled out in disappointment, and promptly burst into tears.

He looked completely taken aback by this if not amused.

"I came to South Africa to be rid of you! If just for the summer and you're here too? This is so unfair!" I cried out to any god that was listening and probably laughing in the heavens. Gathering my drenched things I ran to my grandfather's house, tears of disappointment still streaming down my face.

I am glad I wasn't aware that Dare was watching every move I made, because I knew that even he couldn't be completely oblivious of how pleasing my back view was.

How unfair could life be? Not only was I stuck with him, but also he was still as gorgeous as ever.

Not that I'd noticed.

I dried my eyes and put more makeup on to disguise the red puffiness that follows crying. Then looking at myself critically in the mirror I made a snap decision. I decided that I would play tennis that afternoon,

I will not sit in the house and not have any fun just because he is here. He will just have to avoid me.

I got into my tennis whites and grabbed my tennis racket. There were plenty of people that I could play with at the tennis club.

As I walked to the tennis club, I felt the heat of the sun beat down on me, and sighed deeply it was going to be a scorcher; I definitely had to swim after my tennis game.

When I got to the club, another woman volunteered to play with me, and we matched up and began to play. 10-love to her, 10-5 10-10 eventually we hit deuce. And I as we started to play for the last point, my companion served I heard an obnoxiously sexy voice behind me.

"Hello Serena."

I whirled and effectively lost the game.

"Dare!" I all but screamed, "did you have to talk to me right now? I lost the game because of you."

I walked up to the net and shook my opponent's hand. Thenstalked back to where he was standing. I stood close to him insinuating myself into his personal space and said "it was a complete fluke that you and I would be in the same place this summer let alone the same country. So I'm not going to let you ruin my holiday, you are free to avoid me I really don't care. Even if you make my life a living hell at school there's no reason to do it here, no-body to impress with your childishness."

I turned around and stormed to the opposite sideof the court, far away from him,to gather the tennis balls. I was therefore startled when hebegan tospeak, i had hoped my rudness would give him a hint. If he had gotten it, he was stubbonly ignoring it.

"Oh well that's fine, I don't want to avoid you. In fact do you want to play a game of tennis?"

I turned slowly and deliberately. "You want to play tennis with me?' I asked disbelief written clearly over my features.

"Yeah why not, I mean we're stuck here, we might as well make the best of it."

This has to be a trick, this has to be a trick I thought as I stood opposite him ready to serve. But it wasn't we played tennis and he was actually really good. We played 3 games each me winning one and him two respectively then decided to stop. We were both hot and tired.

"I'm going for a swim" I announced and walked out, not caring whether he heard or not it wasn't an invitation.

I went back to the house and got back into my bikini. Grabbing another towel (my towel was still wet from earlier that day) I went back into the pool. He was already there. I frowned "are you going to follow me round the resort?" I asked annoyed.

"You know, me being in the pool has actually nothing to do with you being here at the same time, it just might be that I was hot and wanted to swim after wiping the floor with you at tennis." I bristled angrily at that, he was so damn arrogant.

"You did not! We only played three games and if we had played four it could have been equal, or you could have beaten me again, then you could say you wiped the floor with me. I think its hardly fair…" I broke off realising he was baiting me and I had fallen for it.

He sighed and pulled himself out of the water.

"Well if you really can't stand my company I'll leave." He said with mock hurt lacing his tone. He walked over to his towel and started drying himself. I sighed in defeat and determination.

"No don't do that, I promised that I wouldn't let you affect my holiday and I suppose I can expand that to yours too. No, stay I'll be civil."

He smiled a charming smile and jumped back into the pool. Clearly he thought he had won a victory over me. I sighed again, and hung my towel on one of the hooks designed for that purpose and dived in cleanly. The cold water felt fantastic as it ran over my body I felt my every nerve end tingling. I came up for air and pushed my hair out of my face. Darien was watching me. I studiously ignored him and swam a few laps, then relaxing floated on my back, my eyes closed against the sun.

"You know for someone that's sixteen you have a really good vocabulary" his voice came from somewhere on my left.

My eyes opened and I looked down then abruptly lost all ability to float when I saw how close Darien was. He was standing right next to me in fact if I had moved my fingers a millimeter they would have brushed his bronzed-god body. I felt streaks of heat go through me and to my annoyance I realized that I was blushing. Thankfully Darien hadn't noticed, or so I thought.

"Serena you're getting burnt." There was definitely smug amusement under the sincere-sounding words.

I glared at him and swam to my towel and grabbed some face lotion methodically rubbing it in. Darien stayed silent during this. I turned back to him and said "I read a lot, and please don't call me Serena it makes me feel weird call me Sere or Rena" and then I dived again, swimming past him and into the deep water. I dived deeper and touched the bottom, smiling as I twirled on my fingers, then came up for air. I laughed when I got back to the surface, completely forgetting that Darien was there. He didn't seem to have moved. I looked over to him, he looked straight back at me and unexpectantly he asked "Are your parents here?"

"Yes, but they don't come to the resort until Friday because they went to Cape Town first to see to some business. Are your parents here?"

"Yeah they are but they…" he paused as if looking for a word, "kick me out of the house in the morning so they can have some peace." He said it with a slight bitterness and his jaw tightened noticably. I felt curious but didn't want to pry into his family problems.

"Why did you come to South Africa?" I changed the subject instead.

"Because"

That's all the answer he would give me he dove under the water towards me, came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, I turned he grinned, "you're 'it'" he said and started swimming hurriedly away from me.

I laughed, this was not happening I'm playing 'it' with Darien Shields? Oh well I dove after him and we had fun trying to catch each other and trying mostly unsuccessfully to maneuver out of the way. Just being normal teenagers, just having fun like they didn't normally hate each other any other time of the week.

I was chasing him when he abruptly stopped and I plowed into his back, not a bad feeling I noticed dreamily, the haze cleared fast however when he turned and grabbed my wrists. I was unreasonably scared. He saw the fear in my eyes and his tone was soothing.

"I'm not going to hurt you"

"Duh!"I snappedbut he had seen a weakness. He tightened his grip before I could wrench my hands away.

"Serena, Sere, I want to apologise" I stared at him confused at the abrupt subject change.

He continued ignoring my confusion. "I'm really sorry for the way I've treated you since you got to Tokyo, I know I must have made life difficult to adjust into, and I'm truly sorry." I wrenched my hands away and stared at him in disbelief, confusion and rising anger.

"You're sorry? Just like that?" I snarled furious, "somebody seems to have grown a conscience, isn't it a bit late? I mean I've already been branded for life as a 'loser' and 'teachers pet' but have you any idea how hard it really is to come from a different country and culture and then try to fit in? And as for the teachers, I respect my elders, teachers are special human beings, they must have the thickest skins or like me they had to grow one, to withstand the torture every single day a school day is."

Then to emphasise the point I burst into tears, surprising him, and swam for the side. Climbing out of the pool I grabbed my towel and ran for the house. That was twice in one day that I had burst into tears in front of Darien Shields.

A/N: Thank you to all those people who read and review and let me know what they think.

Cassee