A/N: And the winner is... AsaKiku! Ah, sorry to Giripan.

Actually, I made two versions of this chapter, one AsaKiku and one Giripan. This is the AsaKiku version. But I'll make the Giripan chapter a bonus (I dunno if I'll make it a side story or a bonus chapter at the end), dontcha guys worry.


花は匂えど散ってゆきます
Hana Wa Nioedo Chitte Yukimasu

Day 9. Tuesday. Excited much.


Time: 9:59 am.

Feliciano is down with a cold, so today I have nobody beside me in Algebra class since he always takes the seat beside mine. Unluckily, the vacancy was almost immediately filled up by an apparition of Alfred, who suddenly took it in his head to sit beside me, rather than his usual position behind me.

"This is a really good morning, Honda," he sang cheerily, whistling a tune. "Oh, what a good day it is today."

I shot him a Very Meaningful Look Which Meant I Wasn't In The Mood, but its meaning just bounced off his skull entirely. Talk about thick.

He whistled cheerily, taking out his book and pen. "Hey, did you finish your homework?"

"Of course," I snapped, but quietly, since the wretched teacher was now in the room. I wondered why she wasn't here before us. I mean, this is her classroom after all.

"Good morning class. I gave you a piece of homework to do yesterday, can you please pass all your worksheets now?" she said, menacing blue eyes taking in the class. Then she swooped on her prey - I mean, she snapped at a guy near the aisle, "And I expect you, Nunez, to have tried answering this with a better effort than last time. Your written works aren't faring so good as your oral ones, I fear."

I shook my head slightly. She was one of the most merciless educators in this school. If I wasn't such a careful student in terms of academic performance (not that I was a straight-A student, since I once scored a B in my Algebra grade last year, and in my experience that's my lowest grade ever) and conduct (yeah, I really think that Alfred's "goody-goody" description of me was pretty... accurate), I may as well be that poor Nunez boy, cowering from the Algebra teacher's harsh comments about his poor work in her subject.

I spent the rest of the period debating whether I should go and ditch this class or endure it out. I can't decide on anything, so I ended up with the last option because the bell rang suddenly. It's time for the recess break, which is actually my best extracurricular subject. If such a thing actually did exist.


A free period after recess for all year levels to catch up on workloads. Tuesdays are always nicely lazy. I don't know if this is actually my favorite day out of the week or something, but I guess it is. More time to catch up on my Music practice, since our homework on that subject is to complement the guitar with a song. And of course, I can also catch up in my diary too. Alright! Let's get started!


I was singing a rather melancholic song softly in the garden when I felt... someone standing behind me. Who -?

I turned around rather suddenly, seeing, yes, Arthur standing across the garden directly opposite me. He looked faintly surprised and embarrassed because he was caught, but shrugged it off as if he knew that he would be seen anyway. I gave him a smile and asked him if he would care to join me. His green eyes positively sparkled with what seemed to be laughter. I was... well, I was captivated.

"Why not?" he said, finally grinning and sitting with me on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the garden. "Anyways, what are you singing?"

"Oh, nothing. Just a piece for Music class about blossoms scattering and dying in the wind," I replied, ignoring his less-than-happy reaction about the subject of the song that I picked. "I figured it would be better to just practice today because I don't have anything to catch up to, and frankly, seeing the nice weather outside just makes one forget about cooping up oneself in a dark room to study."

I idly looked around the sky. I felt his eyes upon me, but I determinedly kept staring at patches of white clouds interspersed in the dull blue sky. I wasn't going to blush. Was not. I swear on... on my sword. Or else I would have committed seppuku right there and then because of sheer self-consciousness. Oh. I forgot I left my sword back at home.

We just remained like that, as still as statues, until I felt my neck ache. I turned again to face Arthur, who was still staring at me with his mouth slightly (really just a tiny little bit) agape. Sorry, I just found his expression a little too endearing to resist describing it.

"Is something the problem, Arthur-san?" I finally worked up the courage to ask him when he continued to stare at me, right in my eyes. I faintly felt like telling him that it was rude to stare at a person in his eyes for a long period of time, so that's when I said it. "Is something the problem, Arthur-san?" I repeated, raising my voice slightly when he didn't respond.

He seemed to snap out of it and apologized for his rudeness, blushing profusely and looking very uncomfortable, as if he wasn't sure himself on what prepossessed him to act like that. I accepted his apology well enough.

He struggled to cast around for something to say, then his eyes fell on the little black diary beside me.

"What's that?" he asked in a low voice, indicating the diary beside me.

"Oh," I said rather hesitatingly. I didn't write this diary to let people mess with it, anyways. But he was looking at me with such clear green eyes that I replied helplessly, "It's a diary. My diary."

He snickered softly. "I didn't know that someone like you kept a diary."

"It's in my blood, I guess." When he appeared to be confused by my reply, I continued, "You see, some warriors also keep something like a diary to record their war participations and experiences and also battle records."

"Oh, I see..." Arthur looked curiously at the diary, enthusiasm lighting up his face. "You know, when I find out that a person keeps a diary, it suddenly makes me want to read it. To see if they view the world differently from you or if they really feel the same about your opinions in life. I dunno - I've never been that great a diarist - Heaven knows how many times I tried to keep a diary and failed extravagantly - so I've always been convinced that the most unlikely people ever to write single entries in a diary, just like you for example, are also the most interesting."

I sighed softly. "You think so?" I fidgeted a little as my cheeks flushed.

"Is that written in English, maybe?" he inquired, his expression changing subtly as if he struck upon a brilliant idea.

"Unfortunately, yes," I said. "Why, if I may ask?"

"Hey, I dunno if I can ask you this much, but if you say yes I'll be much obliged" - I was beginning to be suspicious upon his opening lines - "but can I borrow your diary to read for... a couple days maybe? I swear I won't let anyone else than me to get near it, much less find it. Please?" He was pleading. With puppy eyes, no less. Um, great.

"But -" I was just going to say something when he clasped his hands together and repeated, "Pretty please?"

"I guess I'll just say... okay," I said slowly, placing a hand on the aforementioned diary's cover warily. "But of course there's a condition. These are my thoughts that you're asking for, Arthur-san. So my condition is something as similar."

He looked a little apprehensive at this. "What is it?" he finally asked rather seriously.

When I told him my condition, he looked perplexed. "What? You know I can't -"

"You can, Arthur-san." I picked up my guitar and the diary with a smile. "And I'll just give this to you tonight, since I have to finish today's entry..."

He gulped, determination finally settling in his eyes. "I-I'll try. If that's what it takes - to finally read your thoughts."

I blushed at his reply, but held my ground. "I'll be on my way, Arthur-san." I stood up, bowed deeply, and walked away. I still felt his eyes fixed on me.

Why the hell can't I stop smiling like I've won the lottery already? I didn't even buy a ticket. Maybe, just maybe, the reason was just that simple... and was currently staring at my back.


The rest of the day passed like a blur. I took notes as expected of me, but what's really in my mind is the nice weather outside. The blue sky rushed on infinitely, the wind slowly trailing a path of green summer leaves.

I was the last one to realize that the dismissal bell had rung already. All around me, shuffling of papers and books were heard and the usual noise was beginning to start outside in the hallway as friends met up after a whole day of studies. I was the only one caught in a time warp, never unchanging.

"Snap out of it, Kiku, aru."

I was startled out of my reverie, but luckily, I didn't need to turn around to see the speaker. "Why are you here, aniue?" I asked simply, memorizing the shapes of the clouds as they glided past. The wind must be strong outside.

"Well, I just want to see you, aru. I don't need any reason just to." True enough. I turned my head to his direction. His amber eyes looked at me with a multi-layered expression. I couldn't read them.

I stood up, scooped up my things, and bowed to Yao. "Then let us take a walk outside, if it'll please you."

He smiled slightly. "I know it'll please me."

We walked side by side in the brick pathway leading to the boys' dormitories. I was at complete peace with the world, and I think my brother's mutual feeling with nature helped a lot.

However, what marred the affectionate bonding between us was the sensation of someone walking behind us. I knew Yao felt it too, but we both kept silent. The moment was just too peaceful to draw attention to the presence, even if I was feeling a lot more scared than I was letting on.


So evening rolled around as I fiddled around in my Netbook, eating huge amounts of gelato in a plastic gallon tub that Feliciano gave me as souvenir when I dropped by his room to check the condition of his cold. I dunno why I'm this hungry. I usually don't care for sweet things this much. And I wasn't that crazy about this much ice cream either. Although when I think about it, eating a whole tub of frozen gelato in a warm summer night surely helps the heat away.

I had finished about half of the gelato tub when I decided to go to the lavatory to wash my face. I put the rest of the gelato in the mini-fridge that stood in the corner (it was full of mainly Heracles's favorite food) and proceeded out of the door and into the corridor. I felt someone's gaze pricking into my back, but like before, I didn't mind it. I shrugged off the nasty feeling and continued in my way.


I was eating the rest of the gelato when Heracles finally arrived. He looked... pretty shaken. Which was saying something.

"Um, do you want some?" I meekly asked, indicating the tub between my hands.

He simply shook his head slowly, then stripped off his shirt. I then proceeded to ignore him and went back to the task of proofreading my research work for World History.

"Hey... Kiku... Have you seen... Ivan Braginski..." he started to say. I dropped my spoon in shock.

"Senpai, why do you ask?" I said, my eyes widening and promptly fixing themselves on Heracles's face. He looked unnerved about something.

"He's right... outside our door... He looks really... intimidating..."

I froze, like a stray cat about to be hit by a car. "He what?"

"He's... there when I came in... He stared at me... as if I were a cat... and he the hunter..." he said in a low voice.

I breathed in, out, in, out. Many times. "I - are you sure?"

"Check him yourself..." was the maddening reply.

At this, I covered myself with a blanket and went into hikikomori mode. "I won't! I-I'll wait until dinner, thank you!"


Thankfully, when the dinner bell rang, Heracles pronounced that Ivan was already nowhere in sight. I was still rather afraid of the possibility of Ivan suddenly barging out of any of the trash cans around the dormitory, so I stuck to Heracles like glue, warily casting around for the mock-innocent face of the Russian everywhere. Thankfully, he didn't cross our path even once (heaven forbid that we meet multiple times a day!) as we went down to the dinner hall.

I wasn't really hungry (I did ate copious amounts of gelato before this), but I still went down to dinner because I would like many thousands of times to face Ivan here where there are lots of people than to have him corner me in my room.


Again, no Ivan in my line of sight as I sat with Feliciano and Ludwig. Feliciano's cold was getting better (although he still sneezes more or less infrequently), and Ludwig was talking to me about some schoolwork-related topic. I felt - almost normal. Almost.

Feliciano accompanied me to my dorm after dinner. I was glad to be in his talkative company, so I agreed.

"Naa, Feliciano," I said as we were about to part ways at my room. "You wouldn't know where Arthur-senpai's room is, by any chance?"

"It's on this floor too, right?" he said cheerfully. "You want me to point you there~?"

"Ah, yes," I said hastily, blushing profusely. Luckily, he didn't comment about that. "Where?"

We peeked out on the rest of the doors in the hallway. "There~!" he said, pointing at one. "Just beside the statue of the three Graces, to their right. You see?"

I saw a medium-sized statue of three women by the hallway. That must be it. "Um, I guess?"

"Okay then," Feliciano said enthusiastically. "I better get going, Kiku~! Good night~!"

"Oyasumi nasai, Feliciano-kun," I replied, and watched his slim figure dance down the staircase.


I am going to Arthur's room to give this diary to him, so please forgive me if I'll not write in this book for two days or so. Don't worry, I hope that lending him this diary to read is going to be more constructive for us.

One knock, two seconds, and he opened the door. I handed him this diary. A bow, and I was gone.

-sayonara from Kiku

P.S. The stars are out tonight. Arthur-san, take care of this diary. Good night.

-Kiku... out


A/N2: So what d'you guys think? I was in fangirl mode when I was writing this and the Giripan version.

Next up: The Diary of the Absolutely Invincible British Gentleman!

Review!