Summary: Tanaka Yoshida had always been famed in her class for being uncaring and cold. She showed no real emotions, and is revered as a fantastic (although quite confusing) advice-giver by the people she chose to counsel. There were no tragic incidents in her past, nor any traumatic events that had ever happened to her. So is her emotionless face just a facade and a trick?

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Prince of Tennis characters.

This chapter is for the following users: Coco96, Ice-creamy-life, Overcoming Mountains, rebirthreborn, Solar Powered Pandas, tazdevil, totoronii, who have alerted this particular fanfiction.

Tanaka entered Class B that day, completely tired and moody. Her ten year old brother had gotten food poisoning and was blowing chunks all over the house that night and she had tons of homework to finish. Her parents were in a special celebratory party so she had to clean up the puke by herself.

Adding more to the chaos was that one of her neighbors accidentally created a minor fire, and the two siblings had panicked as they have never experienced fires before. Tanaka had called her best friend, Kiseki Shimizu an hour after the fire was cleared up, totally freaked out about how to finish her homework. Kiseki was the smartest of "their" group, although the one thing she couldn't tolerate was doing schoolwork for her friends.

Her brother spent all night puking while Tanaka tried to phone her parents. They came in that night at exactly 10:34 P.M. drunk from the party and fell asleep on the couch (her mom) and on the table (her dad).

The shocked teenage girl could only watch in terror as she tried to finish twenty-pages worth of reading before 11:00 that night.

Tanaka banged down her schoolbag on her desk, not caring if it attracted any attention from her classmates. Kiseki and Ranawa looked up at her, and from the corner of her eye, she also saw Konomi turn her head.

"Worst night of my life." She said through clenched teeth, only adding towards the monstrous look she had on; quite opposite to the usually cool and calm image she would wear. Her dark chocolate hair was only half brushed, her eyes were almost as red as Kirihara Akaya's inner devil, and there were very noticeable bags under them.

Both of her friends could only laugh as she sat down and Kiseki began brushing her hair for her (Tanaka sat in front of Kiseki). "At least it's over." Ranawa told her, while taking out her schoolbooks. However, despite that obvious fact, Tanaka's appearance change was still overwhelming.

And when their teacher entered the classroom, his first comment was, "Yoshida, what in the world happened to you?"

Tanaka Yoshida, Kiseki Shimizu, and Ranawa Ikeda could only sigh as the rest of the classroom chuckled in unison.

Although many Rikkai students consider their third year the best year, Tanaka found her school days as a third year constantly repetitive and extremely uninteresting. If there was one thing that kept her to her feet, it was the enigma of Niou Masaharu himself. Yesterday, he showed no signs that he knew her. Today, he would take seconds to look at her when nobody else was looking, although she knew that he knew she noticed it.

The boy was a mystery unsolved himself, and although she had known him for about six years, there was still a piece of his real self that she could not get a hold of. Six years, and he was still the same trickster, if not better.

Tanaka couldn't help but mention him when eating lunch that day.

"He hasn't changed at all, that Niou."

Both her friends looked at her for a time and silence dominated the three. "Maybe he's afraid." Kiseki broke the silence with a simple statement. Confusion now replaced the silence when Tanaka asked, "How?"

Ranawa sighed as if she was about to explain the most logical thing to a insensible child. "Tanaka, it's hard to understand a boy's mind when you're a girl. Most likely, I sense that he is afraid to know whether or not your friendship is still there. You said that you've been the closest friends ever since elementary school. Maybe he's realized that while he's been growing up, you've grown up a lot faster and figured out life well before he could ever."

"Life has tricks." Tanaka replied coldly, referring to Niou's move four years ago.

"The tricks of life makes us who we are. Who we're meant to be, and who we're meant to be with." Kiseki knowledgeable retorted.

Ranawa nodded and muttered, "Quite fitting for Rikkai's renowned swindler of the courts."

And Tanaka could do nothing, but agree wholeheartedly.

When the school bell rang to signal the end of the day, Niou had left because of a "slight fever" and was escorted by the teacher himself. Tanaka was still packing up her things when everybody had already left.

"Yoshida-san, I need to talk to you."

Tanaka turned her attention towards her teacher and she walked towards him while holding her schoolbag in her hand. "Yes, sir?"

"You seemed more tired than usual. Is there anything going on with your family?" He seemed deeply concerned. Tanaka could only guess why. She was one of the top students in math and was the pride of the class in everything related to the subject.

"No, sir. It was just a rare occurrence." Tanaka chuckled, as she tried to let go of the tension that was building.

He nodded. "And you're friends?"

"Fine, sir. I..um..really need to leave. So..please excuse me." She bowed politely and began rushing towards the door and out the school in a manner that ruined her reputation as Ice Princess.

The teacher watched her brisk-walk away and when Tanaka was distanced enough, he began taking off his mask and silver hair began to peek through the wig.

The teacher's face was replaced with a young boyish one composing of slightly slanted striking green eyes, ruffled white hair with a tiny braid at the back, and a mole placed at the right of his lips. He smiled in a manner that intrigued most and shook his head saying, "That girl hasn't changed at all."

And Niou Masaharu watched Tanaka Yoshida's retreating figure until he couldn't see her anymore.

Hey! It's RadianceWithin here. I just wanted to send out a thank you to all the readers! I'm glad that people are looking forward to more chapters of my story (nothing makes an author happier than support).

So far, I haven't gotten any reviews saying how terrible (plot-wise, character-wise, etc.) this particular story is, and that makes me feel incredibly accomplished. Thank you so much for all your support; I know that many POT or NPOT fans are into the whole yaoi thing which was the reason I felt reluctant about making my OC's.

I wasn't being too sensible when I thought that the fans would bash my characters just because they were girls and that the fanfics themselves are not yaoi. Haha. Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I'll work harder and harder to get more chapters in before the next school year comes.

Love