Azalea's POV

I flittered between waking and consciousness on an extremely comfortable bed. But it wasn't my own. I put my hand to my head and murmured at the throbbing headache that encapsulated me. As I finally opened my eyes fully I saw that I was in a smallish room and Ardea was snoring lightly besides me. A large TV hung on the wall inside a wooden unit that had clothes sprawled out over it and a mirror with lipstick stains over it. I slowly sat up without and groaned at how light it was. It was strange for it to be so bright in early spring. Looking round I saw that the room I was in had a balcony with a pretty white outdoor table set. I pulled the covers off my legs and trudged over to the door to close the curtains which is when I got a full view of what we were overlooking.

"Oh… my…" I paused and took in a large breath of air.

"Ardea!" I shouted as loudly as I could without furthering the pain in my head. I ran over to her bed and shook her violently, feeling rather panicky. She rolled over, eyes wide open.

"What?" She asked and then winced. She was feeling the full effects of our 'partying' last night.

"We're in the middle of the ocean!"

She jumped up rather more quickly than I had done and went to look for her-self. I heard her whisper something under her breath and then continue to stare at the rippling waves. I tried to remember the night before with only one memory. It was partly my fault we were here.

I was sitting at my computer desk with Ardea, Hikaru and Kaoru all giggling behind me. We were looking at something on the internet when we managed to find ourselves on a holiday website.

"I need a holiday," Ardea said, slightly slurring. I clicked on an offer for a two-week long cruise around the Caribbean and pointed at the screen with over-excitement.

"Lookie! Look, Lookie!" I screamed and leaned back only to fall onto the floor followed by more giggles from the other drunks in the room. "Let's do this!" I laughed and Kaoru helped me up off the floor.

… And that was all I could remember.

"Where are the twins?" Ardea asked, turning round to look at me. I shrugged and pulled my phone out of my bag that was flung over the sofa to see if we could get any reception here. It sounded ridiculous that you could get reception over the sea, but I had been on a cruise before and I knew it was possible. Good. Full reception.

I called Kaoru's number on my phone but didn't get any answer.

"Did they even come with us?" I asked and Ardea nodded.

"Yeah, I remember the sail-away party. The four of us paid the waiters to give us cocktails. Well – me and the twins did, everyone speaks English." She added with a grin.

"Humph." I replied and looked around to the unit and desk which had had the clothes all over it. They were my clothes and on the floor there was a big bag that had some underwear in it. I examined the damage of my drunken packing. I had plenty of underwear – no doubt about that. Only there was a problem. I had three different coloured t-shirts, an evening dress, a long pair of socks, no shoes and a pair of pink shorts. Wonderful. I grimaced and looked over at Ardea who was doing the same as I was.

"I didn't bring any underwear!" She exclaimed and I fought back a snigger.

"There's shops don't worry, let's just hope we have enough money to actually buy clothes because there is no way I am wearing an orange t-shirt and pink shorts. I'll look like Dora the Explorer!"

I tried ringing Kaoru again and was unsuccessful once again. I threw my phone onto the bed and looked in the room wardrobe to look for the dressing gown's that were always there. They were plain white. I took them off the hanger and threw one to Ardea, but her back was turned and it landed on her head. I slipped mine on over the pretty dress I had worn last night. I could have almost cried as I inspected the damage now. It had red wine all down the front and the side had a rip in it. It was irreparable. Ardea's dress hadn't survived either. The sequined flower was destroyed and she also had alcohol stains down the front.

"Put this on until we buy more clothes." I told her and she did so. Then I jumped onto my bed and picked up the phone. I pressed on the room service button and told Ardea to ask for fruit for breakfast and some paracetamol. They agreed to bring it up and we put the TV on low whilst we waited for waiters to bring food up. Ardea let my put the Japanese subtitles on so I could tell what was going on. It was the millionth time that I had to remind myself to get an English teacher.

There was a knock on the door and I let in the tall waiter who was rather good looking. I raised my eyebrows at Ardea who smirked as he lay everything on the table and then said something to me. I looked over at Ardea sadly – who gave him a reply and handed him a tip.

"I need to learn English." I complained as I poked at my fruit once the waiter had left.

"I can teach you a few little words that will help you?" She suggested but I already knew most important ones such as 'I'm lost', 'I don't speak much English' and 'could you point me in the direction of the toilet'.

"Nah, I'll just have you as my translator for the holiday. I'll get English lessons when we get home." I said. "Speaking of, Dad's away. I better call one of the servants to make sure they feed Tare."

After breakfast we walked out into the promenade of the ship which had a few of the shops in it. There wasn't a huge amount of shops but it was enough for a fortnight's worth of outfits. We both walked out with huge shopping bags and got lost on the way to our room – plus, hallways to cabin rooms aren't that big in ships. We were frequently pulling and kicking bags so we could fit through the gaps. Needless to say we did get very strange looks wearing dressing gowns and no shoes. In the end we had to ask some Spanish guy for directions. Apparently he didn't speak great English. I wouldn't know.

"Ring Hikaru, they might pick up if you call them," I said with a sigh and flopped back onto my bed, all my shopping dumped on the coffee table. Ardea raised an eyebrow at my comment but did get her phone out. Ooh surprise, surprise, he picked up.

"Yeah," She said and I listened, hoping to hear overhear Hikaru saying something if I was quiet enough. "Yeah… okay… meet you there." Ardea said and I noticed her linger before hanging up. I propped myself up onto my elbow.

"You so obviously like each other, when are you going to get together?" I asked, and Ardea shuffled her feet nervously. She had something to tell me.

"He kissed me yesterday." She said and my jaw dropped. I had not been expecting her to say that

"And when were you planning on telling me?" I asked, hitting her with my pillow and sitting up to hear more details. "When did this happen?"

"During hide and seek. We both got the same hiding place." She said and then started putting her shopping away. She wasn't going to tell me anything of interest.

"Very romantic… and slightly awkward." I said and grabbed some toiletries so I could have a shower. I felt disgusting. All manky and weird and gross. The shower made me feel so much better. I washed my hair and felt the waves that had resulted from last night's curly hair style drop out and I scrubbed and scrubbed until I felt as clean as I could possibly get in a tiny cabin shower.

I got out and put on a black pair of shorts and a pink halter-neck before putting on a little bit of make-up and concealer to disguise the bags under my eyes from my hangover. I had remembered to buy some sunglasses for when the paracetamol wore off. Ardea got out of the shower, now dressed and ready to go.

"So where and when are we meeting them?" I asked as she dumped her dress in her bag, looking slightly annoyed. I know she had liked that dress.

"In ten minutes outside the pizza place on the promenade level." She said and so I shoved some sandals on and we made our way down. It appeared that the twins had done a better job of packing than we had done. But they didn't do so well when it came to hangovers. Their hair was a mess and they looked so tired and worn out. But they were dressed well in knee length shorts and day shirts. How could they be so ridiculously gorgeous while looking so rough? We sat down beside them and each got a half-hearted smile. I pulled some pain killers out of my bag which they gladly took and then we had something to eat whilst waiting for them to perk up.

"So, how much do you two remember from last night?" Ardea asked.

"Not a lot. I remember the –" But Hikaru stopped. Ardea blushed and they both looked down at the table. I tried not to laugh at the pair of them. He would have obviously told Kaoru and Ardea had (eventually) told me, so he must just be very shy.

"Let's go to the top deck and get some sun!" I suggested and although we all knew that at this moment in time we would have much rather been sitting in a dark room, it was better than not doing anything. Kaoru and I walked behind as we saw Hikaru nervously take Ardea's hand to walk up to the top deck.

"Feeling any better?" I asked Kaoru who was looking round the shops and clubs with amazement. I noticed he got more interested when he saw a women's salsa dance session.

"Kaoru!" I yelled and clicked my fingers in front of his face. He snapped out of it and looked back at me.

"Feeling any better?" I repeated.

"Well, I've had better days but yes, thanks. How about you?" He asked.

"Pretty much the same." I murmured and then he handed me a credit card sized card which had my name on it. I looked up at him puzzled and he explained.

"I found it in my wallet – along with a picture you drew of two stick people with love hearts around it." He said with a chuckle. Oh god. I could feel myself blushing – how embarrassing.

"Sorry!"

"Don't be, I think I'm going to keep it." He said with a wink.

"Hey! Did you know that tonight is formal night?" Ardea yelled back at us, pointing to a large sign on the interactive map on the wall. Yes! I loved formal nights, an excuse to dress up all posh for dinner and get our photos taken. Plus, this would mean that we got to see the twins in suits. Yum.

For some reason, I found this chapter extra hard to write and I had loooooaaaads of babbling in it. I cut it down and it was still four pages long. I apologise for the long wait xD I think Silvana was going to kill me if I didn't get it out soon – she'd already threatened to kick me in the shins xD

Oh! REVIEW!

Ash =3