Eli laid on her bed, a frown apparent on her face.

She was currently throwing a rubber ball against the ceiling before catching it and repeating the process. Different thoughts ran through her mind as she thought over Nozomi's speech, her words still evident in her mind.

Out of frustration, Eli tossed the ball as hard as she could against the ceiling, resulting in the ball bouncing off and hitting her in the face. She cried out in pain and clutched her face with both her hands, her face going red in embarrassment.

"What the hell is wrong with me...?" Eli mumbled to herself before rising from her bed. Her face still stung a bit, but it was nothing intolerable.

She looked around her dorm room. The walls were painted a rose red color, in dedication to her division of course. There was a small nightstand next to her bed, but otherwise the room was barren. It was simple, yet clean, just like Eli preferred it.

The Rose Red representative clutched the handle of her door, intending on exiting, before her thoughts ultimately rolled back to the events a few hours prior.

To say she was shocked at the new girl's decision would be an understatement. Rose Red had so much to offer, while The Tulips had nothing.

But Eli couldn't say that she blamed her. She wouldn't want to be caught in the cross fire of the Lilies and the Roses.

And unfortunately for her, she was directly in the middle of the whole situation.

She sighed as she exited her dorm. She walked down the wooden floors of the refined dormitory and headed downstairs for dinner. Eli heard it was pasta night, which she didn't mind, but Umi was a big fan of Italian dishes. Eli laughed at Umi trying to contain her excitement in her head.

The representative jogged down the stairs at a quick pace, crossing by fellow Roses with a 'hello' before continuing on her way.

Eli walked into the restaurant-like area where she could see her friends sitting at a table together. They were both looking down at their menu's, exchanging a few words every few moments before they were back to their menu's.

Eli rolled her eyes as she approached her two friends, taking a seat next to them.

"Oh hey Eli." Umi greeted, her eyes tearing away from her menu to Eli. Her eyes were analytical and logical, though at first glance they seemed like a warm brown.

"Hey Umi, Maki." Eli nodded to the redhead girl who was sitting across from Umi. She was absentmindedly twirling a finger through her hair and her violet eyes never left the menu.

"How are you doing, Eli?" Maki asked, her curiosity masked by disinterest as she flipped through the menu.

"There's no need to put up a facade when I know exactly what your thinking, Maki." Eli smiled, poking Maki's arm, who rolled her eyes when a faint red splotch appeared on her cheeks.

"S-Shut up Eli, you're not all that." Maki shot back.

"Wow, you got me." Eli pushed further, earning a soft chuckle from Umi.

"Y-You shut u-up too Umi!" Maki stuttered out, and Umi chuckled yet again while Eli shook her head with a smile. Maki covered her face with her menu, as if it was a means of escape, and motioned with her hand for Eli to answer her question.

Her smiled faded and was replaced by her regular stare as she spoke.

"I'm okay. After I thought over Hoshizora-san's decision it started to make more sense." Eli's tone when she finished the sentence demanded that they didn't speak further about the subject. Umi was already fine with it, flipping through her menu, but Maki seemed to still be unhappy with the minimal response. Though she didn't voice her thoughts on the matter.

"Well," Umi began after a few moments of silence, with the casual flip of the menu every here and then. "I am ready to order. How about you two?" Maki followed suit and set her menu on top of Umi's.

"I'm good." Maki said. Eli felt the two girls now looking at her as she looked over the menu yet again, wondering what exactly to order.

"Thank you for waiting," Eli set down her menu. "I am ready to order."

Umi nodded and hit a small buzzer in the middle of the table. After a few minutes of waiting, a waiter came to get their order. They told him what they wanted, and he was back after another short period with their meals.

Eli watched with a smirk as Umi looked at the dish the waiter was currently setting down in front of her anxiously. She licked her lips for the umpteenth time, and Eli couldn't help but exchange amused looks with Maki.

They chatted freely with one another throughout their meal. Maki spoke about her studies and how she felt that she was getting mostly everything down, since as of the moment she was currently struggling with Science. Maki also lightly touched on how her piano competitions were going, since she was musically talented, but mostly the piano was where she was at her best.

Umi spoke about Mathletes, and how their group was going. Mathletes was a group formed by Principal Minami where all the students who were talented mathematicians were placed in one group to compete in competitions around the world. Umi could be seen as a math genius-Eli sometimes called her Einstein for fun-and was the leader of the Mathletes. Unfortunately, there were also Lilies in that group, but Umi was able to deal with it.

Eli didn't speak too much about herself. She mostly just commented on certain things and asked about the other two girls. Eli's talent was computers. She was a technology whiz, but mostly specialized in computers and coding.

She couldn't help but mentally wander away from the conversation between Maki and Umi and think about her own goals. Eli was currently working on making her own game, a visual novel. They weren't the most popular games in the world, but Eli thought it was a good start before she started something too large.

The school supplied the funds she would need, but she could just ask for help from the artists around school for character art and backgrounds. She could handle the rest.

Unfortunately there was only one girl in the school whose talent was art.

And that was Nozomi.

Eli knew she could just ask somebody else, but she couldn't doubt the beauty of Nozomi's drawings. They were amazing, Eli had never seen such talent.

Well, next to herself.

"Eli!" Maki's voice snapped Eli back to reality as she looked over at Maki who had an annoyed gleam in her eyes. "You're thinking of Nozomi again, aren't you?" Eli violently shook her head.

"Of course not! That waste of space?" Eli asked incredulously, trying to keep her voice down. Attracting the attention of the other Roses would be bad.

Umi rolled her eyes.

"For a waste of space you sure seem to talk about her a lot." Umi reminded. Eli's expression changed as she glared at Umi.

"Listen, I thought we had a deal." Eli whispered roughly, repeating the same thing to Maki, who sighed.

"Yes, we did make a deal. Sorry." Maki apologized.

"Yes, I apologize as well, that was careless of me." Umi continued, taking a bite of her meal. Eli shook her head before she indulged in her own meal, her mind reeling as thoughts of Nozomi kept popping up in her head.

I hate Nozomi.

I hate Nozomi.

I hate Nozomi.

No...Nozomi hates me.

Eli sat in the computer lab, running a hand through her blonde ponytail as she sighed. Her eyes were droopy and tired, and she fought to stay awake as she continued to type into the computer.

Eli had written the story of the game over the summer. A modern day rewrite of Romeo and Juliet, that was how Eli liked to think of it. Umi had aided her in writing the story, and Eli felt like the two of them had done an excellent job.

But there wasn't too much she could do in terms of coding without the art. That was one of the key parts of a visual novel, it was visual.

Yume no meiro

Yuri no meiro

She slammed her head against the desk. Eli wasn't too afraid of making any noise, since she was the only one in the computer lab.

The computer lab definitely wasn't a part of the Rose Red dorm. No, it was in the main school building. She knew that there was a curfew, but since she was the representative of Rose Red the teachers trusted her enough to let her have her freedom.

That was the upside to it.

Eli had tried to draw on her own, but they usually turned out looking absolutely atrocious. She never knew she was such an awful drawer, but since she was a computer genius, she had to have a drawback somewhere.

Maki and Umi weren't exactly artists either. Sure, they were far better then Eli, but in the grand scale of things that really didn't mean all that much.

Eli wished that it was anybody other then Nozomi, but that was just the way it was. Eli had always known Nozomi was a fantastic drawer.

The Rose Red representative leaned back against her chair as she closed her eyes, thinking about the time when Nozomi had drew a portrait of her self.

"Eli-chi, you need to stand still." Nozomi said, shaking her head as she continued moving the pencil carefully along the white sheet of paper.

"You should have informed me of how difficult this would be before we started Nozomi." Eli pouted, trying to stop herself from moving as Nozomi giggled.

"I thought you were a little bit stronger then this Eli-chi~."

"Shut up!"

Eli found her self smiling at the memory, until she realized who she was thinking of and she quickly gave her head a good shake.

That was nothing but the past. Nothing but a recollection of meaningless memories that would merely hurt Eli rather then help her.

That was what her father had told her. And Eli believed her father.

Akogare o kataru me ga

Tooku o sagashi teru toki

Sabishiku naru

Watashi wa koko ni iru to iitai no

Eli saved her work and shut down the computer, feeling dead of inspiration as she really realized how tired she was. The blond slipped out of her chair and exited the computer lab, locking the door behind her.

She walked outside and took a sharp breath at the cool night air. Stars glistened in the sky, and Eli stopped her self from reaching out for them, settling for just looking at them in amazement.

Her walk towards the Rose Red dorm was a short one, since the school was in such a tight area that she could travel from building to building efficiently. Her eyes drifted over the The Tulips dorm, one that she often forgot about.

The Rin girl was now the representative of that dorm. Eli wasn't too sure about what the girl was going to do with that position, since Tulips didn't really hold that much power in comparison to the Lilies and Roses.

Eli thought about her responsibilities of tomorrow. The Mathletes were requesting a trip to America for a large convention and Eli was supposed to write her stand point on the situation and present it to Principal Minami.

Nozomi was supposed to as well, and Eli already predicted that she would send the Mathletes to America without a second thought. Eli wasn't too sure.

Yes they may all be almost eighteen, but Eli just thought about all the things that could go wrong. They all spoke English, but it was pretty broken and hard to understand.

Different scenarios raced through Eli's mind as she thought about what exactly she would bring up in her proposal, but decided to think on it more later. If the Mathletes did end up going, it wouldn't be for a while since the convention as near the end of the school year.

Plus Eli was too tired to think straight.

So she decided to going back to her room and take a well deserved rest.

On her way back to the Rose Red dorm, she saw somebody sitting on the bench outside of the Lily White dorm. A girl was sitting there, and Eli could have sworn she heard soft sobs coming from her.

Eli tried to focus her sight on the girl, but was having difficulty. She crept towards the bench sneakily, not wanting to get caught. It would have been a little hard to explain why she, a Rose Red, was creeping towards an unsuspecting Lily White.

The Rose Red rep blinked a few times before she finally noticed who was sitting there.

It was Kotori Minami, the principal's daughter.

Eli was told to never speak of Kotori by Umi after what had gone down between the two, so she had never really spoken to the girl. Not to mention the fact that she was a Lily White, which already created a large rift between the two.

And here was the girl, sobbing at eleven at night, wearing nothing but her school uniform in the freezing cold wind.

Maybe Eli was a Rose Red, and maybe she disagreed with the Lily Whites morals.

But she didn't hate Kotori personally.

She took a deep breath and ran a shaky hand through her air, unsure of what exactly she was going to do. This went against everything she went for, Rose Red's were to never associate with the Lily Whites.

But before Eli knew it, she was dangling her jacket in front of Kotori Minami, who looked up at her in total shock.

"Here, you're going to freeze out here if you hadn't noticed." Eli spoke in a cold tone, keeping her gaze on Kotori who was looking at her in confusion.

"W-What are you doing here?" Kotori asked, shocked as she stared up at Eli.

"I was at the computer lab," Eli wasn't sure why she felt required to tell Kotori anything, but she did anyways. "Now are you going to take this or not?" Eli pushed further, stopping herself from forcing Kotori to put on the jacket.

The principal's daughter looked at her uneasily, but took Eli's jacket anyways. The Rose Red representative watched as Kotori put on the jacket and zipped it up. Eli could still hear Kotori sniffling, but it seemed that the girl had stopped crying, which was a relief.

Wait, why do I even care? But Eli found herself caring.

She took a seat next to the Lily White and the two just sat in silence, Kotori glancing over at Eli every once in a while.

"Why are you doing this?" Kotori asked questioningly, and Eli could tell by the tone of her voice that she was unsure of Eli's intentions.

All Eli could do is shrug.

"I'm not too sure myself." Eli admitted, wrapping her hands around herself to keep warm. "Why were you crying?" Eli countered, facing the shorter girl who was startled by the question.

Kotori averted her eyes and looked at the ground while Eli waited for a response. After a few minutes of waiting for just a single response, Eli could tell the girl didn't want to talk.

"It's okay if-"

"You are friends with Umi, correct?" Kotori asked, her voice cracking slightly as she spoke.

This was not what was supposed to happen. Eli didn't want to make her cry. And she certainly didn't want to bring up Umi.

"Y-Yeah." Eli didn't stutter. Ayase Eli didn't stutter.

Kotori made an odd noise, Eli couldn't describe it. It wasn't a sob, or a groan, and it wasn't disturbing. It was just odd.

The two sat in silence for another few moments before Kotori spoke up yet again.

"I was just thinking of her." Kotori admitted sheepishly, sniffling again as she rubbed her eyes. That was what Eli had been expecting, but it still intrigued Eli to hear it come out of the girl's mouth.

Umi didn't speak too much about the fall out of her and Kotori. All Eli knew was that they were childhood best friends before something happened at the beginning of high school and it immediately shattered their friendship.

"She thinks of you too, you know." Eli wasn't too sure if that was the right thing to say in her mind, but it felt right in her heart. And when a smile, very small smile appeared on Kotori's face, she was happy that she said it.

They sat again for another few minutes before Eli rose from her spot. She stretched out her hands, remembering how tired she was. Sighing, she reached a hand out to Kotori.

"Come on, we both deserve sleep." Eli said with a smile. Kotori nodded, and cautiously grabbed Eli's hand. Eli pulled her up slowly before they were standing next to one another.

Eli walked slowly towards the entrance of the Lily White dorm, Kotori walking beside her as they still held each others hands. Eli wasn't sure when the last time was since she had human contact like this. Umi and Maki weren't exactly ones for hugs, and neither was Eli truthfully.

With her free hand she opened the door to the dorm.

"Eli, you know that you can't enter." Kotori reminded, not out of rudeness but more for Eli's own safety.

"It's okay, everybody's asleep by now." Eli countered as she entered the warm building, followed by Kotori who was unsure.

Kotori led the way to her room while Eli followed her. Eli wasn't too sure why she walked Kotori back to her room. It was probably because she wanted to make sure that the girl went to sleep and didn't start sobbing again.

They entered Kotori's room silently, not wanting to wake anybody up. That would be detrimental.

"Thank you Eli." Kotori said as Eli stood outside of the room. Eli shrugged and was about to walk away when Kotori grabbed her wrist.

"No really Eli, I don't think you understand..." Kotori realized how bold she was and immediately let go of Eli, waving her hands frantically. "Ah! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do t-MMMH?" Kotori was cut off by something she didn't expect.

A bubbly feeling filled her stomach that moved throughout her body at a fast pace. This was not unfamiliar, though, she felt like this whenever she saw Umi. Except this was a little different, yet Kotori couldn't exactly describe how.

But after a few moments, she closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss. There was no movement, just a simple kiss that lasted just a few seconds before Eli broke away.

Kotori's cheeks flushed a scarlet color, and she could practically feel the heat emanating off of them. When she looked up at Eli, she could see the girl was blushing as well, with a shocked look on her face.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..." The girl's had no idea what to say. What could that kiss possibly mean?

Thoughts raced through Eli's head as she wanted to just die out of embarrassment. How could have she kissed her best friends...Her best friends...Well whatever Kotori meant to Umi, how could have Eli kissed her?! It had been a spur of the moment, but the kiss had been nice, and soft.

Did that mean that Eli liked Kotori? Did that mean Kotori liked Eli? The girls just stared at each other, trying to understand what exactly just happened.

"I...I got to go!" Eli yelped, darting away in a mad dash. She didn't care about waking anybody up, she just had to get as far away from Kotori as possible.

Kotori quickly scrambled to get her pajamas on. She was sure Eli's outburst had woken somebody up, so she just had to pretend she wasn't a part of it before somebody caught on to what was happening. She shut the door to her dorm and flicked off the lights before leaping onto her bed crazily. Kotori tried to do her best interpretation of sleep and timed her breathing carefully.

Her cheeks were still warm as she thought about what just happened, and Kotori knew she wasn't getting any sleep that night.

But she was her mother's daughter, and she would get to the bottom of what just happened.

Ah! Futari kiri de garasu no hanazone e to

Dare mo inai dare mo iranai

Sotto kowaresou ni sakitai

WTF?! WTF?! WTF?!

HOW CRACK CAN YOU GET?

DID ELI JUST KISS KOTORI?

Yes, yes she did ladies and gentlemen. So what could this possibly mean?

Good question actually...

First of all, do not fret! This is still a KotoUmi and a NozoEli. But you have to expect, it's not like their incapable to like anybody else. So will they puruse a relationship? I dunno, I dunno. We'll see.

My first intention was to have Kotori kiss Eli on the cheek, but this seemed a sort of heat of the moment thing. They just had a super deep talk, Eli can't stop thinking about Nozomi, and Kotori can't stop thinking about Umi, and then they find each other and kiss kiss!

Anyways, apology for any grammer mistakes or anything too bad. I am a really fast typer and sometimes I forget to check my mistakes and sort of rely a little too much on spell check, so apologies.

So I hope you like it so far! Please Review and Favorite/Follow too get this story out there :D

And yeah, that was a little bit of Kotori POV at the end, but I couldn't help it nya.