A/N: This is a side story to the Little by Little. You could also consider this as a prequel to the Pair of Stars although you don't need to read both stories to understand this one.

This is my promised story to Blue Lone Wolf. Even if this one is not like Little by Little and Pair of Stars, I still hope you and the others will enjoy it ;)

As usual, I don't own Sei and Youko and the others.

Read at your own risk!

My 16th story!

"In A Rush"

---Arvendell---

Chapter 1

For how long she loved her friend and former fellow Rose, Mizuno Youko didn't know. Just that she did. She wasn't even aware when did it happen. It just happened. She didn't expect it, didn't plan it, but it did. She just woke up one day to realize that she was deeply in love with the mischievous, playful, and beautiful Satou Sei.

Youko used to dislike the feeling. She didn't want to accept it at first.

Why?

Because Sei would never love her.

Because Sei was in love with someone else.

However, she couldn't just throw her feelings away. Because accompanying the realization of being in loved to a person in loved to another was also the realization that she had always been in loved with that person, that she had been in loved for her for a long time, that the love she felt for her didn't happen overnight but rather slowly yet surely grew within her. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't stop herself from loving Sei. And so she had to endure the heartache of her unrequited love. She had to endure watching Sei grew farther and farther from her. All she could do was to wish for her happiness.

But fate must have other plans, because the person Sei loved left her.

And yet Youko didn't feel relief or happiness from that event because of what it did to Sei. She saw how broken Sei was when it happened. And she was there, picking the pieces of Sei's broken self, trying to fix her broken love, though she did it as subtle as she could so as not to shoo Sei away and to not reveal her real feelings. However, it was all for naught. Because Sei was never the same again.

Youko spent nights agonizing then, trying to think of ways to help Sei, and yet she couldn't find any solution. It took some months before a solution to slowly heal Sei came in the person of Toudou Shimako. Realizing that, she did everything that she could do, manipulating Sei, Shimako, and to her regret, Ogasawara Sachiko, her beloved little sister. Nevertheless, results were the most important at that time. And she did what she could for the one she loved. Thankfully, she was successful in her plans, yet she let her love stray away from her again.

It wasn't important.

As long as Sei was alright and healing, she was fine with it. She had been living with heartache for so long, what did it matter? She could deal with it for as long as she had feelings for Sei. She could face Sei, interact with her normally as she had in the past. A few months of not seeing her since the last time she visited Lillian Academy after they graduated didn't matter. She had always been a strong one. She was a strong woman. She believed so.

Until that yearly New Year gathering at Sachiko's house. She could hardly believe that Sei could still rattle her perfectly built wall, her well-established defense.

Would she blame her little sister's little sister for being the cause of it? After all, if she, Fukuzawa Yumi, didn't suggest it, then it wouldn't have happened.

But she couldn't do that to Yumi, because she, too, was grilled that day. So innocent she was. Her idea of fun was turned into a nightmare by Sei. Maybe it had been a relief for Yumi that she wasn't the only one embarrassed that day. The cousins Hasekura Rei and Shimazu Yoshino were grilled too, by their own eldest sister, Torii Eriko. Besides, it also had a good karma to Yumi, because right there and then, Sachiko admitted that she was the most important person in her life. She was really happy for them. Both Sachiko and Yumi were dear to her. They were her beloved little sisters.

However, unknown to others, she too, was grilled in the spot that day. What was that woman thinking?

Youko could still remember it like it was only yesterday.

Sei stopped laughing when she saw the bottle Rei spun stopped while pointing at her.

"Wow, quick chance for revenge, Rei," Sei said before laughing again. "I'll go for consequence Rei. I'd prefer Shimako's and Eriko's situation than yours and Yumi-chan."

"Go ahead and strip dance," Rei said without thinking.

The room was silent for a moment.

"No. I mean to say…" Rei started but Eriko stopped her.

"You can't change it now," Eriko said, smiling. There was no doubt in her mind, Sei would definitely…

"I like that," Sei laughingly said while the others groaned. "Hold this."

Sei picked the bottle at the table and gave it to Yumi and then she stepped on the table.

"Wait," Eriko said as she headed for the component, selected a song, and then played it.

"Nice choice, Eriko," Sei said as she started to dance at the seductive tune.

Everyone was so focused, the others with shocked, to Sei that they didn't notice Youko's face gone pale as she stared unblinkingly to Sei who at the moment had unbuttoned her shirt, thus, showing white skin.

'Sei, what are you doing?!' Youko screamed in her mind. She had never, ever, imagined that something like this would happen. She wasn't prepared for this, of seeing parts of the flesh of the person that had been hunting her dreams for so long until she learned to push them at the deepest corner of her mind as she kept herself busy with studies.

Her eyes gone wide when Sei's hand reached for the button of her jeans. She thought she couldn't breathe anymore. She could feel cold sweat trickle in her spine. Why was it that she had been trying so hard not to be tempted anymore and yet here it was, seducing her to madness?

Even when Sei had stopped her strip dance, it took a lot of force within her to act as usual, as calm and collected as she used to.

Sei's white, soft-looking skin had been hunting Youko for days and nights. She couldn't stop thinking about it. And to her consternation, she kept on dreaming about it, dreaming of her touching that skin, of her …no! Stop it anymore!

Youko closed her eyes tightly. What was she going to do? She had always been able to control her feelings. But now, she was slowly losing grip because of that stupid strip dance!

And that was not the end of it. The next time she was in Sachiko's house, she did the stupidest thing that she had ever done in her life.

Youko filled her glass with wine for the nth time, not paying attention with the others at the room. She could hear Yoshino arguing with Sei. What was new, she thought as she slowly emptied her wine glass. Her thoughts once again wandered at the event earlier, when Sei greeted her with a huge smile and a bear hug. It made her really happy, and at the same time sad, and mad. What did this person feed into her that she couldn't get her out of her mind? Especially after the New Year incident, when she realized that no matter how much she tried to bury her feelings for Sei in the depth of her hearts, one smile, one hug, one stupid dance, could make them resurface again, threatening to burst out. And at the moment, being so near her and yet so far, she didn't know how long she was going to hold her feelings anymore. It was at the tip of her tongue, wanting to be spilled out.

But she couldn't.

What would she accomplish if she did? Probably scare Sei. Or probably make her laugh. She would kill Sei if she did the latter. Though she couldn't really do that to the person she loved.

She reached for the bottle of wine and poured on her glass. She could hear Yoshino's voice raised in a notch, making it feel like hammer in her currently throbbing head. Sei's loud laughter wasn't helping either.

"Stop making fun of me!" Yoshino practically screamed to the hilarious Sei.

"I'm just telling the truth," Sei said, laughing all the more.

"Liar! You're making it…"

"That's it!!"

Before Youko could hold it, she realized that she had screamed, only to scold herself immediately. Her own voice felt like drums to her head.

Taking a deep breath, she firmly said, "Yoshino-chan, stop denying that you're not possessive. We quite know that you're jealous of anyone and anything when it comes to Rei. While you, Rei, stop acting like you aren't enjoying Yoshino-chan lavishing all her attention on you. You're always struggling half-heartedly it's so obvious."

The two persons mentioned visibly paled.

"Onee-sama, please calm down," Sachiko said after a moment, then caught her breath when Youko turned to her.

Part of Youko wanted to stop, but the other part of her wanted to continue, too. She gave in to the latter and addressed Sachiko.

"And you, my dear petite soeur, what are you doing playing around? If you're in love with Yumi-chan then go for it. Stop acting like the world would come to an end if you would be with her. Stop acting like you could live without her when we know that you couldn't."

Then Youko turned her attention to the shocked Yumi.

"What, Yumi-chan? You want to say something? What are you afraid of? You aren't a child anymore so for once, please act like a grown one and put some sense in the head of that Onee-sama of yours."

After that, no one dared to talk. If someone dropped a needle at the floor, it would surely be heard at the silence that enveloped the room.

Youko could see the stunned faces of the people around her. That was better, she thought as she reached for her glass, only to stop when she heard the familiar laughter. She turned to see Sei snickering. Her eyes twitched. She couldn't hold it anymore. How dare Sei laughed like that?

"You dare to laugh, Sei. Stop acting like you know everything when in fact you don't, you don't know anything at all!"

And then she broke down.

Everyone was again surprised at the sudden change of mood but Sei was quick to react and was instantly on her side and held her.

"There, there, I think you've had enough alcohol, Youko. Sachiko, where will Youko stay to…"

"I hate you, Sei! I hate you!"

Sei abruptly stopped talking and looked at the sobbing Youko with surprise.

"Youko?"

"I hate you, I hate you for making me feel like this, and yet, and yet, I can't help but love you, too."

Sei paled and froze.

And so did everyone.

However, Youko was unstoppable.

"What did you do to me to feel like this? Oh, I hate you so."

Youko heaved a sigh at the memory. She didn't want to think about it anymore. She had to stop thinking about it anymore. She didn't want to remember her foolishness anymore.

A/N: I wanted to make this one the same type as Little by Little, a lighthearted story, but as I was writing it, I realized I couldn't anymore. After abandoning two chapters for almost four months, I forgot how I originally planned the whole story so I just wrote what came into my mind for Chapter 3 and the succeeding chapters. So yeah, basically, I'm informing you that this story is a bit serious. I did try to lighten it up a bit on the last few chapters, as you will soon find out.

29 July 2008