Chapter One

It began on a perfect May morning, when she was twelve.

Michi stares at the uniform draped neatly over the chair. "Mom?" she yells.

"What?" Mom yells back from downstairs.

"MOM!"

Footsteps thump up the stairs. Mom sticks her head into the room, rice flour smeared across her cheek. "What?" she says irritably, wiping her floury hands on her apron. "I'm making your lunch–"

"Where's my uniform?"

"What are you talking about? It's right there." Mom looks annoyed. "What's wrong, Michi?"

"But the uniform was blue! And it was a sailor suit, remember?" Michi crosses her arms over her rumpled pajamas. "Did you buy the wrong uniform?"

"Michi, that's the same uniform you tried on last week when we had it fitted." Mom sighs. "Were you up all night watching anime again? You're not making any sense."

"The uniform was blue, not white," Michi says stubbornly, hearing a whine creep into her voice. "I remember. And it didn't have a jacket like that."

Mom glances at the uniform again. "The jacket does look a little bigger than I remember," she says dubiously. "I can hem it up some tonight. Is that what you're fussing about?"

"Mom, look at it!"

"I am looking at it. Michi, I don't have time for this. Hurry up and get dressed. You're going to be late for your first day of middle school." Mom ducks out again.

Michi glares at the uniform. It's definitely different. The uniform for Yukigaoka Junior High had a navy skirt, not a beige one, and it didn't have a white shirt, or a black jacket. The jacket is long and tailored and hangs to her skirt hem.

It'll be too big, she thinks, Mom bought the wrong one by mistake. But the uniform fits perfectly. She stares at herself in the vanity mirror. The black jacket hugs her skinny frame. Her face is wan above the white collar of her shirt, her eyes dark bruises beneath her bangs. Her small pointed chin pokes out, turtle-like, from her short dark hair. She looks like a cosplayer from some elitist vampire anime. A bad one.

It's the wrong uniform, she thinks, but doubt wriggles uncomfortably at the back of her mind.

Mom doesn't say anything about the uniform, just tucks her lunch box into her new backpack, kisses her forehead, pats down her bangs, and ushers her out the door. "Have a good first day," she says, and smiles at the girl standing in the apartment doorway across from theirs. "You too, Sayuri-chan."

"Thanks, Tachibana-san!" the girl chirps. Michi stares. She didn't know there was a family living across from hers, or that Mom knew them– but she forgets to ask Mom, because the girl across from her is the prettiest human being she's ever seen.

The girl looks about her age, but she's pretty in a way Michi didn't know middle schoolers could be. She's dainty, doll-like, with pale porcelain skin, honeyed blonde hair that falls to her waist in perfect ringlets, and wide, ethereal green eyes. She's wearing the same uniform as Michi's.

The girl comes over, grabs Michi's wrist before she can react, says "Let's go, Michi!", flashes her a smile– revealing dimples– and drags her forward with startling strength.

"Take care!" Mom calls after them. Michi stumbles after the girl, dazed. I'm being kidnapped, she thinks, and feels vaguely offended. And Mom didn't notice.

The girl doesn't slow down or loosen her firm grim on Michi's wrist until they're well past the apartment complex and heading down the main street towards the school district. She chatters the whole time, about starting middle school, about whether the classes will be hard and if the cafeteria bread is as good as everyone says, about the latest shoujo anime Michi had stayed up late watching last night. Michi barely says a word. She's still processing her kidnapping.

The crosswalk light turns red. The girl– Sayuri, Michi thinks vaguely– pauses in her chatter. "Are you okay?" she asks. "You've been really quiet. Tired?"

"...Yeah," Michi mumbles, at a loss for what else to say. Sayuri frowns. "Were you up all night watching Snow White with the Black Hair?"

It dawns on Michi that she must be dreaming. That's it. That's why the uniform is weird, and how this random girl knows she stayed up late watching shoujo anime. That makes sense. Just a dream. "No," she says, prodding her brain back to what feels like an awfully real dream. It isn't technically a lie, although she wishes she had just finished Snow White, instead of binging that creepy vampire harem anime. She doesn't even like harem animes.

Sayuri's green eyes darken suspiciously. Michi wonders if you can lie to your subconscious, even in a dream. Sayuri seems to read her thoughts. Her eyes are suddenly a dulled green-grey. She looks a little sad. The crosswalk light turns green.

"Come on. We're almost there," she says, and takes Michi's hand again. She doesn't talk anymore.

Yukigaoka Junior High is just a block past Yukigaoka Elementary, where she spent the last four years. The route is as familiar to Michi as the back of her hand; she could probably walk it in her sleep.

She doesn't remember the gentle slope leading up to the top of the grassy hill, though, or the towering pink sakuras that frame the road.

The warning bell is tolling as they reach the top of the hill. Other students in the exotic black-and-white uniform are streaming through the white gates, chattering and laughing as if they all know each other. Most of the boys stop to gape at Sayuri. Michi had never seen a boy her age stare at a girl before. The boys she knows still scream about cooties and throw crayons at girls.

If Sayuri notices the stares, she doesn't say anything, but her grip on Michi's wrist tightens a little. She quickens her pace. The warm breeze flutters in her wake, whisking cherry blossom petals around her in a pale pink cloud. Boys and girls are staring now.

Michi spits out a petal. "Sorry," she mumbles, pulling her hand free to push her bangs out of her eyes. She stops short. Sayuri turns gracefully mid-step. "Michi, we're going to be late–"

"This isn't Yukigaoka Junior High."

"What?" Sayuri looks bewildered.

"Yukigaoka Junior High," Michi repeats, pointing to the name carved into the white marble gateposts. "This is Rose Academy. I don't go here. I thought– nevermind. Sorry." She starts to back away. "I go to Yukigaoka. Sorry."

"You mean the elementary school?" Sayuri follows her, still bewildered. "I don't understand–"

"Yukigaoka Junior High." Michi is still backing away. "That's my new school. Not Rose Academy. Sorry. Goodbye."

Sayuri's eyes are turning a clouded dark blue. "Michi, wait!" She catches her arm. "If this is about the other day, I'm sorry. I thought we were over it. Please, let's just go to the entrance ceremony. We can talk after."

"It's nothing you did," Michi stammers. "I made a mistake. It's my fault. I'm sorry."

"Michi–"

Michi turns and flees.

Straight into a brick wall.

She staggers back. The brick wall has shoes, and very dark, expressionless blue eyes.

"Hi," she says stupidly. The boy stares down at her, not saying anything. He's almost half a head taller. His face is even paler than Sayuri's, ivory against his jet-black hair, but somehow he doesn't look sickly. His eyes are so dark they're almost black in the shadow of the sun behind him.

Michi's voice shoots up an octave. "Sorry!" Her face turns hot.

The boy blinks. "'S fine," he mumbles, and brushes past her. The other kids are staring at her. She hunches her shoulders, waiting for giggles from the girls clustered nearby.

One of the girls scoffs. "Can you believe her?"

"That was totally on purpose!" The second girl's voice is shrill.

"Totally fake," their friend agrees. "What a pathetic loser."

"Hey, you!" The first girl marches over and shoves her face into Michi's. "You're new, aren't you?"

Michi stares at her. "...isn't everyone?"

The girl glowers. "How dare you touch Prince Tatsuya?"

Michi blinks. What.

"We're the loyal protectors of Prince Tatsuya," her friend chimes in, rounding on Michi. "We've known him since elementary school. No one else is allowed to touch him!"

Michi opens her mouth, and catches sight of Sayuri hurrying towards her. She snaps it shut again. "Sorry," she says, and backs away.

"You can't–" the first girl says, but Michi is already running.

This is a really, really weird dream.

After checking the map at the train station, searching the train schedules, and even asking an attendant, Michi is positive that this is just a weird dream. The attendant had never even heard of Yukigaoka Junior High. The maps only show the elementary school.

So there's nothing left for her to do except walk back home and hope she can fade to unconsciousness before she actually has to get up for school.

And then the limo appeared, easing to a crawl beside her as she wanders down the quiet road back to her apartment. Michi stops and waits for the driver to roll the window down, resigned to her fate. Maybe she is getting kidnapped, after all.

"Excuse me, miss," the driver says, peering out the tinted window at her. "You're a student at Rose Academy, right? I recognized your uniform. Could you give me directions, please? This is the young master's first day, you see, and I'm afraid we're already running late."

"I'll just walk from here, Tanaka," a boy interrupts before Michi can say anything. "Nagisa knows the way. You can tell Father you dropped me off at the gates."

The passenger door opens. A boy climbs out, shading his eyes against the overhead sun. For the third time that day, Michi stares.

Sayuri had been pretty, in an ethereal, almost unreal kind of way. The boy she'd bumped into had the same faintly unreal feeling, like stumbling across a famous model at the local Walmart.

But this boy cannot possibly be real.

The boy looks down at her. Black shoes, beige pants, a black tailored jacket. He, too, towers almost half a head over her. The bright morning sunlight glints off his ashy hair– not platinum blond, not a trick of the light– silver, like an anime character. His narrow features are oddly delicate, his curved cupid's-bow mouth offset by a strong nose and sharp chin. His grey-blue eyes are icy. "I don't need you. Go away."

Michi opens her mouth and closes it once again as a curly blond head pops out of the open door. "It's okay, Tanaka-san! I'll make sure he gets there. Have a good day, sir."

"I don't need to be taken care of," Ice boy says testily. The blond boy ignores him. "Hi!" he says, tumbling out of the limo and thrusting a friendly hand at Michi to shake. "I'm Ryugazaki Nagisa. Please don't mind Jirou. He's just grumpy 'cause it's so early. What's your name?"

"Tachibana Michi," she says, resigned to staring once again. Unlike the others, Ryugazaki isn't pretty; his rumpled blond curls and shining amber eyes remind her of a puppy, tail wagging. She's never thought of a boy as adorable before, but there's no other word to describe Ryugazaki.

"Can you take us to Rose Academy?"

Michi looks into those wide, shining amber eyes, and nods.

And that's how she ends up back at the Academy, in class 1-A, with the most beautiful girl she's ever seen sitting in the window seat right beside her, the puppy and Ice Boy to her right, and the prince she'd bumped into earlier right behind her.

She knows what's going on, of course. The creepy vampire harem anime had several rival love interests: the dark, mysterious Prince Charming character, the silver-haired tsundere from a noble family, the happy-go-lucky deredere, and of course the gorgeous blonde heroine. There was a fourth rival love interest, but her subconscious had apparently gave up after three.

And then there was her, watching the whole thing come together from the outside, because her subconscious couldn't be bothered to make her the main character.

All things considered, this was a really lame dream.

And then things got worse.