It was a night flight so after the relatively ok dinner and HD ice-cream as dessert and the lack of new and interesting shows; Yui could feel her eyelids grow heavy. She needed a pillow. Turning over, she poked Tasuki sleepily. "Neh, can you help me call for a pillow?"

"WHAT?! No way." Tasuki exclaimed, crossing his arms. "No way as hell am I gonna press that button again!"

Yui chuckled. She had almost forgotten about that episode. Almost. Shrugging her shoulder, she turned to Chichiri instead, only to find that he was gone from his seat. Oh well. Just as her finger was about to touch the 'call' button, an air stewardess appeared at the aisle and handed her a pillow and a blanket. Blinking in surprise, Yui accepted it. Had she been that obvious? Looking up, she saw who occupied the adjacent seat to Chichiri's, and suddenly she didn't feel all that sleepy anymore. How long had he been looking over and why hadn't she noticed?

Kazuhiko simply smiled at her, but now, after what had happened between them before, she suddenly felt that the smile was horribly misplaced on his face. Feeling somewhat queasy, she dropped the pillow and blanket onto Chichiri's seat and turned back to the monitor screen.

"Daijoubu?" Tasuki asked in concern, frowning a little at her sudden loss of cheeriness.

"Hai, daijoubu…" she echoed, and then flashed him a reassuring smile.

Just then, Chichiri reappeared from wherever he had been. Picking up the pillow and the blanket, he sank down onto his seat. "Eh?" he sounded, referring to the pillow and the blanket.

"Heh, it's yours." Yui nodded.

"Ah, service is good, no da!" Chichiri chibi-grinned, hugging the pillow.

Glancing up and then quickly away, her eyes met with Kazuhiko's just for a second. And within that one second, she had seen everything she needed to know- he was annoyed and that might spell trouble. Closing her eyes, she tried to fall to sleep. She was strong. How could she let her fear control her? Why should she be afraid of him anyway? She had gone through way tougher situations. She had survived an almost rape (she gripped the hem of her shirt tightly at the mental recollection); she had survived the harsh manipulations by Nakago; she had survived heartbreaks; and sheesh! She had even survived being devoured up whole by Seiryuu! In comparison to this all, one mere Kazuhiko couldn't scare her! Then why did she have that feeling that something horrible was going to happen?

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Tasuki was grouchy. His shoulder was numb; his back was hurting due to the stiff position he had to sleep the entire night without moving. Daring to turn his head slightly and looking down, he saw that Yui had ABSOLUTELY NO trouble sleeping at all. Her eyes were still shut, her head leaning against his shoulder as she hugged a spare pillow that Chichiri had called for her yesterday.

Shaking his head, he silently chided himself for being such a softie (as much as he hated to admit due to his big-bad-bandit image). Yesterday night when it was getting ridiculously cold, casting a sleepy spell over the plane's passengers, she had been resting on Chichiri's shoulder. Then, somewhere along the way, Chichiri suddenly pushed her gently towards him, saying he had to go to the loo, and even after coming back, had refused to take her back, slyly saying, "No, no! She might wake up! Besides, Yui would feel more comfortable like this, no da! Don't you want her to sleep comfortably?" Eventually, Tasuki had given in, and now, with an aching shoulder, he secretly wondered if that was exactly the reason why that monk had so persistently passed him the job of being the 'big-pillow'.

Just then, he felt someone grab his left hand. Frowning slightly he looked up. He knew it. Darn Kouji was enthusiastically shaking his hand, mouthing 'congrats'. "One more word," Tasuki growled, "And I'll…" But before he could make a death threat, Kouji had already run back to his seat and Yui was finally waking up.

"Eh?" Yui muttered as she got up, blinking.

"Finally…" Tasuki grumbled, straightening up, rubbing his poor, abused shoulder.

"Oh, it's you," Yui said somewhat surprised, and quickly piecing the events together, she smiled. "Ah, thanks for the shoulder."

"You're welcome, I suppose," Tasuki muttered back, still rubbing his shoulder.

"Oh, look! Breakfast, no da!" Chichiri chirped, pointing to the cart of great smelling food being pushed down the aisle.

The breakfast was, admittedly, good, considering that it was 'airplane food'. It was a rather typical English breakfast, with scrambled eggs and sausages, and even smoked salmon salad! It was great. Oh, and they were landing soon, in perhaps another half-an-hour or so, which came as good news to the class who desperately needed some leg stretching exercises after the long flight hours. Meanwhile in that remaining half-an-hour time, nothing much really happened as most of them had their eyes glued to the screen, Yui included, who had momentarily forgotten about a certain Kazuhiko.

Finally, the airplane made a smooth landing and the announcement came on, informing the flight passengers about arriving at their destination, a quick report on the weather, and then a 'thank you for flying with JAL and we hope to see you again'. Upon the collection of their luggage bags (which was really a bit of a hassle since some bags look almost too similar for easy recognition) and after exchanging 'goodbyes' with their friends from the other two lucky classes, the class (consisting of the FY gang) headed off to their designated bus which was scheduled to transport them to their hotel.

"Eh, utsukushii!" Miaka exclaimed in awe, standing at the lobby of the hotel, while dragging her luggage along. And indeed it was. The hotel was absolutely stunning. It had the rough, cottage sort of feel, with bricked walls, a red embroidered carpet spread on the floors, and even a chandelier at the staircase area. Matching up, the rooms were beautiful too- the walls were covered with elaborate patterns, all the furniture were of wood, and even the plain-coloured curtained seemed to showcase the outside view like a painting. All in all, the entire hotel was possibly better than everyone had envisioned, considering that it was a budget hotel.

After everyone settled in, took a snooze or whatever they pleased in their own rooms, Yui, Miaka and gang met up to go for dinner. As they (the class) had arrived in the late afternoon, Mrs Hiekyo had declared the remaining hours of the day to be free time, stressing again that she trusted them to behave like mature adults, and that the scheduled tour would start the next morning. Clad in warm apparels, the FY gang waited impatiently at the lobby for the super late Ko-

"KOUJI!" they called disapprovingly.

"Heh heh, ah, gomen minna-san!" Kouji grinned sheepishly at them. "Hope you don't mind me asking a fellow schoolmate along!" Stepping aside, he gestured towards a petite-looking girl with cherry-red hair pulled back in a braid. "Everyone, this is Kirichi Melody."

"ORH!!!" Tasuki exclaimed rather loudly. "You're that Mel-chan- " His sentence was left hanging as Kouji quickly tackled him into silence.

"Heh, don't mind this doofus here," Kouji said to Melody. "Oh, by the way, this is Tasuki. And that's Miaka, Tamahome, Hotohori, Chichiri and Yui."

"Oh, hi!" Melody waved pleasantly. There was something gentle and soothing about this girl that immediately won the gang over. It was certainly not hard to see why Kouji was so crazy about her.

"Ok, let's go! So, Melody…" Miaka, being the most enthusiastic one immediately lapsed into a conversation with the new friend, as the rest followed, with Tasuki and Kouji still somewhat lagging behind.

Making sure they were somewhat out of earshot, Tasuki nudged Kouji. "Eh, so today's asking her along is sort of like a 'meet the family session' to get our approval right? Well, your 'Mel-chan' seems like a nice girl, so you've got my 'approval stamp'! So when are you gonna ask her?"

Punching lightly him on the shoulder, Kouji laughed back. "Well, thanks. Hmmm, soon, perhaps. Make it official kind of."

"Ah well, then, I guess I'll have to refer to her as 'sao3 zi4' (sister-in-law in Chinese) right!" Tasuki joked.

"You bet!" Kouji laughed, slapping hands with him. Then, lowering his voice, he teased, "You know, if you're gonna 'chase' Yui, I would give you my stamp of approval too!"

At that, Tasuki's face visibly coloured. "Cheh! What are you talking about…?"

Kouji chuckled at Tasuki's uneasiness, and decided to push on further. "Ah! You can deny it, but one day, ONE DAY, you WILL succumb to the magic LOVE brings!" He exclaimed dramatically, gesturing in a rather theatrical manner. "The 'how-do-I-live-without-you'! The 'all-you-need-is-love'! The 'it's-the-way-you-make-me-feel'! Ah, sweet love!"

Tasuki rolled his eyes and walked away.

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Author speak: Ok, yar if u have guessed by now I'm realliii having a humongous writers block. :X but nevertheless, since I've said that I wouldn't abandon this story…. Yeh. Though it's gonna take awhile to get it rolling along again.