Actually, one drabble... almost a ficlet... I GOT EXCITED OKAY it just kept coming and I had to write it all... so this is gender changed ulumi. I figure that with traditional parents, Yumi would think along the lines that the boy makes the first move, and Yumi has always had more self confidence than Ulrich, so in this situation I think Yumi (Hiroki) would have the confidence to confess to Ulrich (Ulrike) that Ulrich didn't have in the original series.

Hiroki Ishiyama stared at his parents nervously, tugging at his hair. They hadn't realized he was standing in the door yet, and he had waited for his younger sister, Yumi, to leave before he went to talk to his parents.

"Uh, mom, dad..." his parents looked up, as he fiddled with his clothes, embarrassed.

"What is it Hiroki?" his mother asked kindly, though with undeniable curiosity. Hiroki tried to hide his blush.

"How do you, um... how do you... tell a girl that you like her?" he asked, his voice close to a squeak. The delighted looks on his parent's faces were actually a little bit disturbing.

"A girl's caught your eye huh?" his father had a distinctly proud look. "Is it one of your friends?" Hiroki refused to answer that.

"If you're not going to help me, then forget it." He muttered, starting to walk away.

"Hold on Hiroki, you know your father's just teasing. We'll help you." and his mother sent a glare to his father that seemed to settle him down. Once Hiroki was seated across from them, his father started.

"First, what kind of a person is this girl?" he asked. Hiroki looked at him for only a moment before focusing on the floor. Hiroki thought of Ulrike, arguing with Rachele in that passionate but friendly way of theirs.

"She's shy and yet snarky... but once she gets to know you, she can be really..." He thought of how she'd blushed when she'd given him his birthday present, insisting it really wasn't much. His lip quirked, "...sweet. She likes sports, and regularly petitions the school to allow girls to join whatever team they want. She's really pretty, too. She has a lot of guys interested in her. I know she's gotten confessions regularly." Hiroki bit his lip.

"She sounds wonderful," his mother said with a gentle smile.

"And a bit of a challenge. Do you think she likes you?" his father asked. Hiroki frowned, thinking of all the times she'd caught Ulrike looking at her, or the times Ulrike had caught him looking and had blushed.

"I think so," he said after a moment, "and Ra- I mean her friend says that she likes me, but she could just be messing around."

"Well you won't know until you try." His mother said gently.

"That's right," his father said. "Now, here's what you do."


Ulrike had woken up that morning to a knock on her door, but when she opened it and looked out, no one was there, and on the ground she found a single white rose laying over the CD she'd complained about wanting for forever. There was no note, only the rose. She was always weary of gifts; Xana and unfriendly boys were both worries for her, unfortunately. Still, she took both the rose and the CD into the room.

"Whas that?" Rachele asked sleepily from her bed, which she had yet to leave.

"The CD I wanted and... a rose."

"Who's it from?" Rachele sat up, looking slightly more aware.

"I don't know. And until I do, I probably shouldn't listen to the CD."

"That's absolute nonsense. In fact, you should listen to it right now." Rachele grabbed it from Ulrike, and put it in the CD player before she could get it back.

"Rachele! What if it's another one of Xana's tricks?" but even as she said it, the music started, and Ulrike was just about ready to kiss the ground. "Oh. My. God. It sounds just as good as I thought it would!" she tried not to squeal in excitement, but ultimately failed. Rachele just grinned at her.

"It seems you have a secret admirer," she teased. Ulrike glared at her.

"You know something, don't you?"

"Who, me?" she asked innocently, fluttering her eyelashes. Then she dropped the innocent act and shrugged. "Seriously though, I actually have no clue."

It only got stranger from there. There was a light pink rose stuck in her locker, another on her desk in science (lavender), another on her desk in English (peach), then another in her locker (orange), then she got one delivered to her by a resigned looking Willa (yellow with a red tip), and by the end of it, she was feeling thoroughly confused.

"Who is giving me all of these flowers?" Ulrike asked, unable to hide the blush on her face as she sat down to lunch. Many of the girls had been giggling and swooning at the flowers. Everyone giggling about her having a secret admirer when she said that she did not know who they were from.

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious." Joëlle said from behind her as she and Aias went to sit down across from them. Aias looked at him confused, as did Ulrike. Rachele only smirked, exchanging a look with Joëlle.

"You know who it is?" Ulrike asked. "Tell me!"

"I can't just tell you," she complained, "that's why the person giving them hasn't just popped up and handed you one. It's supposed to be at least a little bit mysterious. Plus... if you know anything about the language of flowers, it paints a particular picture."

"Flowers have a language? I didn't think they could talk." Aias asked, confused.

"Ah, not quite. They symbolize things. In this case, roses especially tend to be associated with love, but different colors of roses mean different things." Joëlle answered him, patient as ever.

"Tell me what they mean, please." Ulrike asked Joëlle desperately, clutching onto the small bouquet.

"Yes, what do they mean?" Aias asked excitedly. Joëlle sighed.

"Fine, I'll tell you. A white rose means all the usual- purity, innocence, all that- but it also means, 'I am worthy of you'. Light pink means admiration, gentleness, grace and joy. Lavender means love at first sight or enchantment. Peach means gratitude and sincerity, and is symbolic of closing a deal or entering a relationship. It's basically like saying 'let's get together'. Orange is desire and passion, and most telling of all- yellow with a red tip. Yellow roses are symbolic of friendship, while red roses are symbolic of love. To put red on a yellow rose is to say 'a friend is falling in love with you'. Now," she said with some impatience, "does that maybe even possibly sound like someone we know that is a friend of yours whom we also haven't seen at all today, for some reason?"

To Ulrike's credit, it took her only a few seconds. "You don't mean Hiroki?" she squeaked, bring the roses to her face in an attempt to cover the blush that began to spread.

"No, clearly I was speaking of the President. Of course I mean Hiroki!" Joëlle rolled her eyes. "Between the god awful sexual tension and the blushing every time the two of you look at each other, I struggle to believe that it could honestly be anyone else."

Ulrike looked like she was at a loss for words, but she was luckily saved from having to discover anymore by the appearance of Sissi. Sissi was holding a red rose with a note hung on its stem. "For you Ulrike," she grinned. "Looks like your admirer is ready to confess!"

Sure enough, the note told her to meet the person over by the field. Ulrike wasn't too far in denial to dismiss the familiarity of the handwriting. "What do I do?" she asked her friends.

"You go! Right now!" Rachele told her.

"The worst that can happen is that you turn him down and you both move on. Please, go." Joëlle said as Rachele began to push her out of her seat. Nervously, she began to walk away from her friends. The last thing she heard was Aias.

"Wow, those flowers sure have a lot of meaning. How did you know all of that Joëlle?"

She made her way to the field, and sure enough, it was Hiroki. He was sitting there on the edge of the bleachers, nervously fiddling with his shirt. His head whipped up when he saw Ulrike approaching and he quickly got up.

"So... you've been... sending me flowers..." Ulrike said haltingly. The blush on her face had not subsided, and was quickly being matched by Hiroki's.

"Yes... I've been- I mean I thought-" he winced at his mangled words, before taking a deep breath and spitting out "it's just that I really really like you and I would be absolutely thrilled if you agreed to be my girlfriend."

Ulrike felt her heart jump into her throat. Blushing furiously, she dug her foot into the ground, not quite looking at Hiroki. "A lot of people say that, but most of them only think I'm pretty," she muttered.

"That's not true! I mean, you are pretty, but that isn't it. You're kind and you're snarky and you look out for others and you're a great fighter! There are a ton of good things about you!" he insisted. Ulrike blushed even harder, but she looked up this time, made eye contact.

"You really think so?" she asked shyly.

"Absolutely!" Hiroki said with such confidence that it made her feel... well, good was the only word she could think of.

"I'm not going to change for you." she said it quietly, but firmly. "I'm still... I'm still going to be me."

"I wouldn't want you to change. It's you that I like. That I think I might even come to love." Hiroki said with more confidence than he honestly felt. "So how about it?"

"...Yes."

"Really?!"

"I just said yes, didn't I?" but Ulrike was smiling, and Hiroki could barely contain his joy. He wanted to swoop her into a hug and kiss her smack on the lips, but he settled for taking her hand and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Let's go tell the others." He said, still holding her hand. She nodded, still smiling, still blushing, and they walked back to the cafeteria together, hands swinging between them.

Got the rose info from rkdn roses/colors. asp