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Ehehehehehe thank you all SO MUCH for the great reviews!!!! You're all so nice and encouraging!!!! Sooooo…..here it is!!!! Chapter Three!!!! *grins and waves*

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Chapter Three

As I skidded around the corridor, fairly certain that my shoes were making smoke trails on the floor, I crashed into something. Hard.

The impact sent me flying to the wall, and as I slammed there, my breath diffused out of me, through my clothes, and into the concrete. Along with coherent thought of course. Automatically, I reached up to feel the large bruise forming on my jaw.

OWWWWWW.

"Fu—oh, fuc—"

Before I completed my sentence, I became aware. Very suddenly aware of a living, breathing weight heaving shakily. On me.

"Aaaaaaargh!!!" my eyelids flew open as I backpedaled furiously, scrambling as my right hand got entangled in the strap of my bag. "What the—!"

"Don't start on me, Genrou. I could report you for running in the corridor and causing grievous hurt to another student."

My focus immediately swung to the petite, dazed-but-obviously-still-sane-enough-to-threaten-me (Imagine that! Hah, me! Threaten ME!), and wincing guy who was similarly sprawled out on the floor. A good way away, and bedecking the halls in resplendent and liberal glory, books and papers were strewn, and the enormity of what I had done sank in.

I had just flattened the student council's president. The ace student of the current senior batch, valedictorian-in-the-running, musical extraordinaire cum student counselor, Asroburn's prodigy of the twenty-first century. Wildly popular, recognized by nearly all the faces on campus if only for the color of his hair, lead guitarist of the school's performing band by choice and A-list hunk (or so that's what the girls say…you don't expect ME to hold that opinion, do ya?) by fate.

"Ah," I began as violet eyes glared and narrowed in the approximate direction of my left ear. "Ryuuen?"

No response. I was beginning to get nervous.

"Ryuuen?" I tried again, getting to my knees and hesitantly waving a hand in front of his face. "Hey buddy! Wake up already!"

Again, silence. This time though, his glare pointedly came to rest on my face, before deliberately moving past me to scan the floor behind me, and the mess that adorned it. I prepared to flee.

A slim hand shot out and caught my wrist.

"HEY! Let go of meeee!!!! This is no fucki—"

"If you swear again, I'm going to report you," a glint in the violet eyes and a small twist in the set lips made me reconsider the option of taking the stand of indignant abuse. I tried as inconspicuously as I could to nudge my wrist away.

Damn. The guy was strong.

"Ryuuuuuuen!" I protested in vain. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I was seriously on the edge of freaking out when the corner of his mouth tugged downward in a wry, controlled expression. And then the bastard started laughing.

"God, Genrou, I've missed you."

I growled at him, indicating my wrist. "That's nice. Now will you PLEASE let me go?"

Okay, maybe this was the part I hadn't explained, like how I knew him and all that. See, in my first term, Ryuuen was the student leader who had been assigned to my group. I registered late for Asroburn because I had been in France for their annual Grand Prix Championships, so naturally, the rooms had all been booked. Ryuuen, being the amazingly good guy that he is, actually let me bunk in with him in his single dorm, which he got on account of his connections with the creepy under-grown weed you call a college secretary. We had gotten along pretty fine, actually. But through the holidays, my mother had applied for my own dorm, and it had been assigned, which basically meant that I now had my own room, and could stop imposing on Ryuuen. Not that I was going to tell him that I was really sorry or anything. Are you kidding?

I bit my lip as he grinned cheerfully and waved the hand that was still clasping my wrist in an iron grip. "I really wanted to run into you today. Not as sedate as I would have preferred, perhaps, but I just wanted to find out how you were doing. And to tell you that I still have a few of your things that I got to return to you."

Aaaaah. I was truly touched. I mean, the first day of school and he thinks about that little groupie who haunted him the entire past three months? But seriously. I felt oddly sincere for that space of three seconds, before I hastened to arrange my features into a mask of nonchalance. "I'm doin' great, Ryuuen. And you're still holding my hand. Earth to Ryuuen."

"Will you help me pick up all the stuff you just made me drop?"

I sweated. "Do I have a choice?"

He laughed, a quick flash of white teeth as he let me go. "No."

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I sat in the familiar room, bouncing slightly on the bed and rumpling the black covers. Ryuuen emerged from the other end of the room, holding a large box with the remaining of my belongings that I had neglected to pack.

"Need help?" I called out. He snorted, and dumped the box at my feet. The dust particles flew up and into my face, causing me to go into a choking, coughing fit. God, it fucking STUNG!

Through the fog and the blood rushing to my head, I caught sight of Ryuuen shrugging. "Don't look at me," he grinned as he dusted his hands on his jeans. "I found those while I was packing for term break, but you had already gone, so I just let it sit in that corner."

I wheezed in reply, standing and blinking rapidly as the reflex wetness soothed my traumatized eyes.

"So. I heard you're a big thing now."

I thought I heard a strange undertone to his voice. Then again, I was probably just imagining things. "Nah."

He laughed again, the sound rippling through the air. "No? You're on the state newspapers as a promising new talent, Genrou. You're the youngest on a branded label, and you've been living up to it. I followed your event while you were in France, even before I knew you. And now you've done it again. How do you feel?"

I cringed inwardly and flopped back against the bed, cushioning my head with my arms. "I dunno, Ryuuen. I don't hate it, but I really wish things could go back to when nobody knew me."

He turned to look at me in surprise, his long purple braid swishing in the silence that followed my statement. Without pausing for thought, I continued.

"It just sucks, you know. It's not racing. Hell, I love racing, living it out in fast cars, winning, and the whole routine…"

"Then what is it?" he asked softly, coming over to sit across me in the large wicker chair I remembered.

I shrugged again. "It's everything that comes with the racing. This morning, a whole group of geese I didn't know screamed the living daylights out of me when they saw that the guy on the newspaper and the guy in front of them were one and the same. Then some idiot kissed me in class."

I said the last part without even thinking, but Ryuuen's vocal response proved to be very successful in making me realize, with utmost horror, that I had just revealed what I had sworn I would take as a secret to my grave.

I opened my mouth to defend myself when a loud knock came on the door.

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Eheheheheheh anyone wants ta guess who's at the door?!?!?! Sorry if this chapter was so long-winded!!!! I'm just bringing in all the other seishi, and I wanted to make them seem real!!! =P Ah, is this too boring? Let me know pleeeeeeease. I need someone to stop me before I make this so terrible that no one will want to read it anymore! *wails*

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