A/N: Look, look! I didn't make you guys wait ages again! And I apologise in advance for the slight swearing again, but without the teachers there... Well, they're teenagers.

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Encounters

Yaya wondered idly if lettuce had any calories as she inspected all the vegetables that the store had to offer. Deciding that lettuce did not, in fact, have calories - or at least not enough to worry about - she quickly added some to her basket, alongside a few apples, carrots and a small amount of cheese. Satisfied, she strutted to the counter and paid for the food. Yaya was confident that she could make grocery shopping look glamorous, and the strange glances that she was receiving only strengthened that belief.

Stepping outside, Yaya was confronted with a sight that she really did not need to see. Kukai, damn him for living in the same town as I do, was flirting. Or perhaps flirting was too light a word for what he was doing. He was... seducing some poor girl. He was whispering something in the girl's ear, a hand gently cupping her jaw. Yaya was going to turn around and walk away before she barfed all over her shoes when she finally recognised the girl.

The girl was on her team. She was the one with daddy connections who looked like a dead squid with ten left feet when she tried to dance. And she was breaking one of the first rules that Yaya had set down at the beginning of the year: no flirting or sleeping with jocks unless Yaya Yuiki personally approves it as Head Cheerleader. She was being disobeyed and that just was not done.

She stalked up to the oblivious couple, fighting the urge to retch when the girl laughed nasally and fluttered her eyelashes in a way that made her look as though she were having a seizure.

"Penny!" barked Yaya, her hands on her hip as she glared at them both. She took some satisfaction in seeing the girl jump away from the Phoenix as though she'd been burned. Kukai merely shot her an annoyed look.

"My name's Penelope," she said, drawing herself up and trying to stare down the Power. Anybody could've told her that it was stupid to try to outdo a Power: any Power.

"You are what I say you are, and you do what I say you do," snapped Yaya.

"Jealous, Yuiki?" drawled Kukai, slinging an arm around Penelope's shoulders.

"Oh yes, I always wanted to date a cheerleader," Yaya deadpanned, barely paying him any attention. Right then she had bigger fish to fry. If one girl dared to question her authority as a Power and as Head, then the other members of her team would soon follow. As a Power, they knew best that authority was mostly perceived and about as insubstantial as mist.

"Great. Now, Polly and I have things to do, places to be..."

"My name's Penelope," she protested. He leaned down and whispered something else in her ear before nibbling at her earlobe, which caused the girl to blush and Yaya to gag.

"If you don't leave right now, you will be off the team faster than you can say 'slut' and I will have the school calling you Pee Pee by Monday," she said confidently. She paused. "Actually, I might do that anyway, just for fun."

Penelope opened her mouth to argue, but the look on Yaya's face made her close it again. Shooting the smaller girl a look of mixed fury and fear, she pushed Kukai away and hurried home. Yaya could have crowed in satisfaction.

"What the hell's your problem, Yuiki?" yelled Kukai.

"Oh boohoo, you're not getting laid tonight," she sneered, holding her nose in the air and about to walk off with her groceries.

"Frigid Bitch!"

"Whatever, asshole."

-lll-

The strong smell of flowers invaded Amu's nose and she sneezed, but she didn't mind. She'd loved flowers ever since her mother had taken her to a flower field and had told her that flowers were the souls of emotion. There was the added bonus that nobody from their school would be caught dead in a flower shop. Flowers weren't cool, especially since all the female Powers had, at some point in their high school lives, metaphorically and sometimes literally crushed an admirer's flowers beneath their heel.

Which was why she was shocked when she heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like it belonged to Tadase asking the florist whether they had tulips. Amu slowly peeked out from behind a large arrangement of flowers. She'd been right. Tadase stood there, his eyes shining with sincerity.

With a muffled squeak that she would forever deny she could make, Amu ducked again, eyes wide and her hands covering her mouth in shock. She'd had a crush on him for years and now she meets him here? A part of her was dancing for joy and singing that the fates were aligning so that they could be together, but a larger part of her just wanted him to leave. She wasn't sure if she could handle the stress of talking to her crush (who she saw every day now at school) and acting 'cool and spicy'. Especially not here in the flower shop where she escaped to whenever she could.

"And lavenders?" she heard him ask politely. The florist said that, yes, they had lavenders as well, and would he like to have them arranged and wrapped up?

Amu's nose tickled. Oh no...

A loud sneeze reverberated around the shop, the force of it knocking her against the table which caused the stand holding the arrangement to topple. On reflex, she reached out to catch it, finding herself completely exposed to the stares that both the florist and Tadase were subjecting her to. She couldn't help it; she blushed. And then she drew on her protective shell.

"What're you doing here, Prince?" she asked coolly.

"Hinamori-san," he greeted, eying her warily. "I'm buying flowers."

"Obviously," she said, managing to inject boredom into her voice even though her heart was thumping erratically in her chest.

"What are you doing here? Last time you got flowers didn't you throw them in the trash?"

"Are they for your girlfriend?" she blurted out, her face reddening again in mortification. "I mean, you're always turning your fangirls down and stuff."

"I... don't have to tell you anything," snapped Tadase, paying for the flowers and leaving. Amu followed him, needing to know. If he did have a girlfriend: and really, he was nice and a Power and he wasn't exactly harsh o the eyes so why wouldn't he? If he had a girlfriend, maybe Amu could get over her crush which had been going on for so long that it felt more like a burden than anything else. And if he didn't... Well, maybe Amu had a chance? She mentally snorted. Yeah, right – he had fangirls that were closer to him than she would ever get. He hated her.

"Why are you following me?" he asked finally, the silent girl walking by his side starting to freak him out just a bit. She shrugged.

"I wanna see your girlfriend," she said honestly.

"I don't have – I mean, what, so you can sneak into her house tonight and take her as a hostage?" he said harshly. She turned and looked at him.

"You don't have a girlfriend?" she asked, hating how hopeful she sounded. "Then who're the flowers for?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Even though Amu was a Power, at least she wasn't showing much animosity. And she was still a girl, and you had to be polite to girls.

"It's... personal."

She let out a "Well, duh," before she could stop herself.

"Could you just go away, Hinamori?" he snapped, not managing to feel guilty when he saw her flinch ever so slightly. After all, she was a Power and she was prodding him for information that she really didn't have the right to know.

"Go away?" she said derisively, her mask of indifference sliding into place once more. "Get over yourself. I also happen to be heading in the same direction as you, Prince."

"Yeah? Well then, stop talking to me!" he hissed.

Amu rolled her eyes, trying not to show the hurt. "Whatever."

They walked down the street in silence, each fuming at the other.

-lll-

Utau browsed through the store, running her fingers through the assorted CDs and DVDs and taking another sip of water. She was taking a lunch break from rehearsal. It was rather brutal, especially since she tried to sing the song while going through the routine, which just didn't seem to be possible. She ended up gasping like a fish before the last verse and wondering why there was a triple back flip in the air during the second chorus. All it served to do was make her nauseous.

Something caught her eye.

There, on the cover of one of the DVDs, was a girl in the midst of a dance beyond anything Utau could hope to achieve. Her long, purple hair was tied in a pale blue bow, and superimposed above her was just one word.

Nadeshiko.

And, no matter which way she turned the cover or what angle she looked at it from, she swore that it looked just like a younger Nagihiko, only the smile on her face wasn't phony.

She turned the cover over to read the blurb.

Nadeshiko inspires everyone across the country with her grace and powerful...

Utau didn't read further, because then she saw a logo on the corner of the cover. Mystique Productions.

She purchased the disc and made a mental note to examine it further when she had the time. For now, though, she had to get back to doing fancy movements and trying to sing a horrendous song in the meantime.

-lll-

A woman in her early forties and a business suit stood outside a very large, very old house which was just shy of being called a mansion. She held a cell phone to her ear, an irritated look on her face. Next to her stood a small, dainty-looking blonde girl, staring at the ground beneath her feet.

"Where is he?" the woman muttered, scowling.

Rima kept her eyes down and scuffed her shoes on the ground.

"Don't do that," her mother scolded immediately. "And look up. You won't get anywhere if you look so submissive. Chin up, back straight and look ahead. God, where is he?"

God's in heaven, if you believe the bible-toting Christians, thought Rima although she bit her tongue and said nothing. It wasn't wise to backchat her mother, especially when she was this tense.

The appearance of a sleek, black and expensive-looking car broke her train of thought. Her mother crossed her arms, looking livid as a man stepped out and hurried up to them.

"Where have you been? You're half an hour late!" she yelled, slipping her phone back into her pocket.

The man looked annoyed. "The meeting went later than I thought it would. It's not like I could just ask them to leave because my 'wife', in the very loosest of terms, is being a..."

"You're always like this! Can't even make time for your own daughter," she declared, gesturing to Rima.

"Oh? As though you don't get the nannies to do all your mothering for you while you go off to have a spa day or something," he sneered.

"I'll have you know that my work -"

"And mine is less -?"

"It's because of you that the driver resigned -!"

"And not because you keep sending him out to buy everything from groceries to -?"

"Don't make this about me -!"

"Well, you're always making it about me -"

"That's because you -"

"Mother, father, the tutor is waiting," said Rima quietly. She was looking down at her feet again, unwilling to watch her parents fight and squabble. They were separated, because a divorce was too messy and could cause a scandal. Because they both argued that they hadn't the time to care for her, they had come to an agreement in which she would spend one week with each parent. And because they didn't trust schools in general, they'd enrolled her in a government school nearby to save on driving time and then hired personal tutors.

Her father barely spared her a glance but her mother scowled. "What did I just say about looking at the floor, Rima? Look up, look ahead and look proud or you'll never make it to the top."

Rima obligingly lifted her eyes, but in that moment she looked anything but proud. Her mother huffed, clearly unsatisfied.

"Well then, hurry up," her father snapped, striding back to the car. Rima hurried to keep up, letting her gaze fall back to the ground. She was never able to look up when she was around her parents for any length of time. They always made her feel... insignificant.

Rima hated feeling insignificant.

-lll-

Amu peered into the room, holding a hand to her mouth. She knew that Tadase knew that she was there, but he was ignoring her and she was keeping her distance in an attempt to give him some privacy.

They were in a hospital, and Tadase sat by the bed of his grandmother, holding her hand. The flowers had been placed in a vase at the foot of the bed, and there was no sound in the room other than that of the heart rate monitor and the low murmur of Tadase's voice.

Honestly, she almost couldn't believe that Tadase visited his comatose grandmother every day – it just seemed like... a story: a fairytale wherein the hero is good and wholesome and he uses this to defeat the bad guys. Call her cynical, but she hadn't been able to believe that any of the Powers could be able to show that kind of humanity.

Oh no, she could feel her crush surging back, stronger than ever. She buried her face in her hands with a moan. She'd never make it through the next fortnight. Or, at least, not without completely and absolutely humiliating herself past the point of no return.

Amu 'Cool and Spicy' Hinamori had a crush on Tadase 'Prince' Hotori.

This could not, would not, end well.

-lll-

Kukai watched as the glowing green numbers on his clock shifted from 00:59 to 01:00. This was the second night in a row that he hadn't been able to find a girl. Last night, his parents had called for him to go back home after getting a phone call from the teachers about trashing the art rooms. Today had Yaya frigging Yuiki chasing away his prospective date. And then he'd had to work, and he hadn't had time and now he couldn't sleep.

Again.

His eyes drifted from the clock face to the photo frame laying face-down on the table. Kukai groaned and turned resolutely away from the photo frame. Thinking about it would not help his insomnia. He lay there for a while, staring at the wall.

He shifted.

Lay there.

Closed his eyes.

Shifted.

Turned.

Scratched an itch.

Lay there.

Opened his eyes.

The clock read 1:19.

"Shit," he said resignedly. It was going to be a long night.