I know, it's been over a year. Let me just say, my life hit me right in the face and the recovery has not been easy. I'm pretty glad this story isn't too popular.

Other than that, I just want to say I am not continuing this story as it is. I looked back at it and I feel disappointed with it as it is now. I did, however, start to revise it. At the end of this I'll give the basic plot and the first two paragraphs of writing of what I have done, which is not a lot. Again, life, work, and college give me very little time to write. Plus, I am lazy. Very very lazy.

So yeah. I also want to thank all the people who have commented on my story and reviewed it a bit. You are all very nice people. Thank you to all the people who have also liked this story and to the people who have added this story to their alerts. You all are very nice and made me very happy.

So, the revised edition I started. Hopefully I'll be able to find time and motivation to get some chapters out. Let me just warn you, any updates I do will be very slow and spontaneous. I doubt I'll be able to have a consistent updating schedule. I do, however, want to write more about Mariko, she's a very old OC of mine that I have updated and changed many times for years. She's a very dear OC to me, so I want to write her story. So I really do hope to write more for the revised edition.

I'm pretty sure that's about it, so without further ado:

The Yanaihara family has just moved back to their original homestead, where Mariko spent the first twelve years of her life growing up.

Why did the family move?

"To further the families accounting firm and help her mother get more clients for her painting commissions."

Why did the family move back?

… The same reason.

This was her flighty parent's reason for almost everything they do that includes travel. But what's important now is that she is back in her original hometown, a dwelling she feels is her home, and that she's going to start school at Ouran again, for the first time in five years.

But the catch that makes this worse, it's her last year.

It's a good thing she kept contact with two good friends.

Chapter. 1: Hello Old Friend

The old house, with its wildly overgrown garden from five years of no maintenance, was bustling with the family's maids and gardeners working to get the garden back to its once grandiose beauty. Mariko remembered this garden as safe haven, a place she could go to play and enjoy her time drawing the many flowers and animals that lived there, a place where she could spill her worries with the security of knowing no one would be listening. The young girl couldn't wait to experience that feeling once again, but she would have to wait for the gardens keepers to not be in such abundance and for the garden itself to go back to its past beauty.

Mariko watched from her bedroom window the hustling and bustling of the workers, some going back and forth from the house to the garden and others staying in the garden fixing up its overgrowth. She absolutely adored the view her bedroom got, or she will once there isn't so much movement on the grounds. Sighing, she closed her curtains and turned back to her bedroom, it was moderate sized and had her bed, dresser, and desk already where she wanted them. The bedroom was obviously cleaned not too long ago as the smell of cleaning products hung in the air and the carpet still had the wheel marks of the vacuum cleaner, the only problem was that boxes full of her possessions were dispersed around her room waiting to be unpacked. Moving house was always such a hassle.