Kinjo Matsuri sighed deeply as she leaned backward against the tall pillar behind her. In her hands was a single sheet of paper, one that she was holding close to her chest. The young girl could easily recite the contents of the page that she was holding. She looked over at the clock that was ticking loudly in the hallway. 7:27, it read. She then glanced down at the paper in her hands before pushing herself off the pillar and making her way down the hall and towards the front of the school.

In her hands, she held the tennis team tryout results. The list in her hands consisted of fifteen names; the names of the fifteen female students that had made the team. After the final day of tryouts, she and the sensei sat down in her office and selected the team for this term and the next. For her, the decision was difficult. She did not want to cause hurt feelings with the selections. An hour into the meeting, she started to hear Ootori Kyoya's voice in her head. "Take the people you feel will benefit the team." The phrase echoed in her head, pushing out her doubts. Each lady that tried out held different traits that could benefit the team, but the benefits were outweighed by the lack of skill or experience. At the end of the night, they had selected the team. Fifteen girls; seven of them, herself included, for singles play, six of them selected for doubles, and two alternates. These were the fourteen girls that would fall under her care.

Slowly, the raven haired girl pulled two thumbtacks from the announcements message board. She then carefully she placed the roster on the board, tacking it to the board. Stepping back, she saw that the boy's tennis roster was already up. They also had a team of fifteen. Matsuri folded her hands behind her back as she stared up at the roster on the board. She hoped that she had made the right decisions. The sensei seemed to think that they had made the right selections.

Curious to see their reactions, but not wanting the girls to see her, she backed away from the announcement board and found her way to the shadows. And it seemed that it was just in time. She heard running footsteps coming down the hall and the sound of laughter. The girls were coming to see the list. The first two girls that appeared had indeed made the team. They were on the doubles list. They cheered and high-fived one another before walking back down the hall. Matsuri glanced at the clock again.

7:45.

By eight am, several more girls and a few boys came to see if their names were on the list. In her nervousness, she did not bother to look at the boys list in depth. She'd only glanced at it and saw that there were fifteen people on the list. The boys that came by looked pleased with themselves, and she assumed that they were on the list. However, the girls that came through were not all lucky. A few of them looked and when they did not see their names, burst into tears and ran down the hall, sobbing. Others looked several times before admitting defeat, and walking away with their heads down.

"Kinjo-Senpai."

Matsuri turned on her heel letting out a sharp gasp, startled by the sound of her name being called. Her raven hair whipped around with her, catching in her mouth and covering her face. As she attempted to remove her hair from her face, she heard a soft laughter admitting from the person that had called out to her.

"I'm sorry, Kinjo-Senpai, I didn't mean to startle you."

"Fujioka-san," Matsuri said as she placed her hand on her chest and started to breathe easier. She'd thought that one of the girls that had tried out, and didn't make it, had caught her watching.

"Oh, Haruhi, please," the second year girl said.

"Matsuri," the raven haired girl replied with a smile.

Before either of them could speak again, a young girl ran by them covering her eyes with her forearm and sobbing. Matsuri frowned as she watched the retreating figure.

"It'll be okay," Haruhi voiced as if she read her mind. "I'm sure you made the right decisions with the sensei." She smiled.

"You think?" she questioned as she looked back towards the announcement board. Two more girls appeared and hugged each other when they saw that they had both made it.

"Yes, I do, Matsuri-Senpai."

The older girl sighed and turned her honey brown eyes to the clock: 8:15. "I suppose that we should get going to class." Haruhi held her arm up, elbow close to her side and forearm parallel to the ground. Matsuri laughed quietly and took the arm of the Host Club member standing next to her. "Are you escorting me to my locker, Haruhi-san?"

"The goal of the Host Club is to make every girl happy," Haruhi recited with a laugh. "If you wish me to escort you, then I will."

"It seems I am the luckiest girl in all of Ouran," Matsuri laughed.


Matsuri spent her day with her head down.

When she entered her homeroom class, she hadn't expected what she was greeted by. There were a few girl standing in the back of the room talking, and when she walked in they silenced themselves as their eyes bore into her. Initially, she was sure that she wasn't the one that they were looking at, but when she continued into the room and their eyes followed her all the way to her seat, she knew that she was their target. Cautiously, she looked over her shoulder to see if she could put a name to the faces. Ando Riyoko was the one in the center group. And then she knew what this was all about. Her younger sister had tried out for the tennis team and unfortunately did not make the cut. And this was her punishment. They were going to glare at her all day.

At first it didn't bother her all that much. So what they were looking at her? However, after three classes of them watching her without stopping. She began to feel the back of her neck heat up and turn red. At this point, she was more embarrassed than anything. She didn't like having her every motion monitored. It was maddening. But they weren't going to get to her. She'd managed to escape their gazes at lunch time. However, she decided that it would be more beneficial to her sanity to spend her time outside away from anyone else that might want to join in on the upset glaring.

She found herself at the rose garden maze, having just followed her feet wherever they took her. It wasn't until she was at the entrance of the garden maze that she even realized that she had made it outside of Ouran's walls. With a soft shrug, she walked into the maze. She clasped her hands behind her back gently as she strolled through the maze, her eyes falling on the roses in the walls. Eventually, she found her way to the center of the garden.

"Ootori-san."

Matsuri was surprised to see him sitting at the grey stone table in the center of the garden. When she approached, he had his head down, eyes scanning the words in the book in front of him. He must have been deep in concentration, because he didn't look up from the book when she called out to him. Instead, his brow creased even more as he continued to read.

Cautiously, she took a step towards the table, but then she stopped. She did not wish to bother him. He seemed deep in thought and it would have been rude. However, he was sitting where she wished to take residence. Perhaps they could share the table? So there she was, standing awkwardly in the middle of the maze.

"Kinjo-san."

He looked upward suddenly, probably feeling that she was staring at him. The sunlight glinted off his glasses as he looked at her. She brought her feet together, taking a half a set backward and bowing her head.

"I'm sorry, Ootori-san. I called out to you, but you didn't reply. I was just about to leave," she apologized.

"Kinjo-san, it's no bother. I apologize for not responding when you called out," he told her, waving his hand to dismiss her apology. "You may sit if you like," he told her as he moved to close his textbook.

"I don't wish to keep you from your studies," she replied.

He shook his head and gestured for her to come and sit. Matsuri moved from her spot and walked to the table where he was seated. She sat down gracefully across from him, she ran her fingers through her raven hair and sighed deeply.

"You seem distressed," he stated as he pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"What was your first clue?" she questioned.

"Would you care to talk about it?" he asked as he placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward.

She tilted her head to the side in curiosity. "Are you honestly interested?" she questioned.

Kyoya mimicked her head tilting action. "I would not have asked I were not."

If anything were true it was that. Ootori Kyoya was not one to take in frivolous information, he was also not one to asked a question that he did not care to know the answer to. "The team roster is up," she told him. "The roster is up and the sister of one of the girls that did not make the team is in our year. She's been glaring a hole in the back of my neck since homeroom."

Kyoya clasped his hands together and placed his chin on the knuckles of his clasped hands. "Do you feel that you made the right selection?" he asked her, a hint of curiosity laced in his voice.

Her answer was immediate. "Yes."

"Then the opinion of other's does not matter," he told her, there was a stern tone in his voice but he somehow managed to still sound cool and aloof.

"I suppose that you are right," she told him, already knowing that he knew he was correct. "You'll be a very good business man when you are older," she told him lightly.

The light glinted off his eyeglasses, hiding his eyes from view. "Oh?"

"Yes, and when you are a successful businessman remember that I told you that you were going to be great," she said with a soft smile.

Instead of responding to her statement, mostly because he was unsure of how to do so, he looked down at the time on his phone. "I think that we should be heading back." He stood and offered his hand out to her to help her up. Once she was standing, he collected his book and started out of the maze.

There was a silence between them. However, it was not one of those uncomfortable silences. She was very comfortable walking in silence with him. Just being in the space with him was fine. If you had asked her a month ago if she would ever think that she would be on an acquaintance level with Ootori Kyoya she would have laughed. They had been in school together for ages and they had never exchanged more than a few hundred words in all that time. And now, here she was spending her lunch period with him, accidentally of course, and some of her time after school. She hadn't expected for the year to start out this way; her path crossing with someone that she'd know of for ages.

"My father RSVP'd to your father's gala at the end of May," Kyoya said conversationally as they exited the maze.

"Oh?" she said, trying to sound interested. She'd heard enough about the gala at home to last her a lifetime. It was the last thing she wanted to hear about at school.

"Yes," he replied. He glanced over at her. "I assume you will be in attendance?"

Matsuri nodded, thinking back to the dress that her father had selected for her and presented to her last night when she finally made her way home from school. "I will." Matsuri looked over at him as she stopped walking. Curiosity got the best of her and she questioned, "Will you?"

He took a few more steps and then looked over his shoulder at her. The light glinted off his glasses, keeping her from getting a look at his eyes. "I suppose that I will."

With that Kyoya continued his trek towards the castle-esque building without a glance over his shoulder towards her. As he distanced himself from her, she felt the corners of her lips turn up.

To her surprise, his answer had pleased her.


A/N: Hello again and thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter of Serendipity. Can you feel things heating up between our two main characters? Yes? No? Let me know with a review! I think it's fair to say that you can expect an update from me at least once a week, I try for every three or four days but once a week is probably what will be the best time frame. Anyway, let me know what you think!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything about Ouran except my original characters.

~ Nikki