AN: Thanks again for the reviews and alerts!

I decided to give you guys a little break from the sad this time. But fear not! The next chapter I believe is the emotional one... if I can get it down right.

This chapter is just basically showing Rie and Niou post break up. The chapter goes from Niou to Rie. But it stays in third person POV.

I was planning on making this chapter longer, but as I got to Rie's ending, it was just too great a cliffhanger to ruin.

-Coco

...

Chapter 3: The Separate Lives of He and She

He was avoided. There was no other way to put it. The rest of the school may not have noticed it, but he did. His friends slowly distanced themselves from him, like by not inviting him to go hang out after practice.

Yes, he was still part of the team, and during practice they still acknowledge him but there was distance there also. He was talked to less by everyone, and even received the occasional glare from Akaya, Marui, and, surprisingly even, Yagyuu.

He was just a corpse. Because of Rie, he no longer had his heart. Because of his teammates, he no longer had anything else.

And he hated them.

He blamed them for the emptiness he felt inside.

The master trickster tricked himself.

He tricked himself into believing that it was entirely their fault.

It was their fault for not understanding him, for not caring enough to hear him out, and for not looking past his mistakes and seeing that he was sorry.

However, there was still a part of him that tried to make him accept it. Accept the fact that it was his fault. He cheated and now he was paying the price. It told him that he needs to go and apologize.

But he, if anything, still had his pride. So he refused to admit that he was at fault.

So he simply waited.

He waited until his friends got over it.

He waited for everything to go back to normal.

And he waited for his girl to come back to him.

She was content. All her life she had just been content. She had everything a child could want, except the things she couldn't buy.

Like almost all the parents of the children of Hyotei, her's were basically never home, and when they were, they didn't have time for her.

She had been raised by a nanny, to be a polite, poised, and sweet girl. But she hated it.

Oh how she loathed the backstabbing ways of the world she was born into. The corporate jungle, where one wrong move could cost you everything, was her own personal hell. But she stayed, because that was where she was needed. Her parents needed her to get acquainted with all the right people, become friends with their kids, and one day carry out the family business.

So, because of this, she couldn't break down. She couldn't show weakness. It was against her way of living.

Therefore, she simply went back to her normal routine. She woke up, went to school, practiced in the music room, went out to the courts to watch, and then went home.

The difference in her day wasn't that big. But it was enough to affect her.

But still she woke up every morning and put on a smile, fooling everyone else into thinking she was okay.

... Well, almost everyone. Her parents could tell something was wrong, but after their days at work, they didn't have time or the energy to try and figure out what it was.

She also didn't fool all of her friends. True, Atobe, Gakuto, and Akutagawa remained as oblivious as usual. Kabaji... well let's face it he wouldn't notice something unless Atobe told him. Shishido, Ohtori, and Hiyoshi noticed but they didn't say anything. They simply felt that it wasn't their place to try to talk to her about.

Oshitari... he was her biggest problem, they were best friends. It has been that way since forever and she knew he knew something was wrong. She also knew that the tensai had ways of getting what he wanted.

So, she decided to give up. Give up on trying to fool everyone, give up on pretending she was okay, and give up on her life.

She had to move on and this was the only way she knew how.

AN: So what did you think? Tell me in a review!