"Come on, let's visit Haruka. Haven't seen her lately," Darien snatched Serena's books from her hands and quickly tugged her down the stairs.

   "Wait a minute," Serena stopped Darien in his hurried tracks, "I won't go searching for her again alone in that wide campus. No way alone." Serena has that warning look in her eyes.

   "Who says you're going alone? We are going to see her," Serena raised a brow. Darien saw this, "If you're worried that we get to bump into another batchmate or Richelle for that matter, don't you worry, I'll still go ahead with you," he started to walk again but stopped and winked at Serena, "And besides, if we managed to bump into her again, we'll let her go with us. I'm sure Haruka would be delighted to see her." Serena rolled her eyes behind Darien. She had managed to swear before that she isn't going again with this man, having the excuse of seeing Haruka into bumping into a 'batchmate' named Richelle in particular. Heck, she doesn't know why her feet fails to stop and get away.

   "Ummm... there's one bit problem. My car needed some repairs so we have to take the bus for now. Sorry..." he gave her a killer smile. As usual, Serena couldn't resist.

   While looking for a vacant seat, Serena heard Darien greeted someone in the backrow, "Hey!" Serena groaned quietly as soon as she realized who was the person whom Darien greeted -- a girl actually. Yeah, you guessed right, it's Richelle again and Serena felt sorry for herself knowing that she couldn't really blame the girl.

   Darien went straight to Richelle and sat down beside her. The seat is a three-seater so Serena sat beside the two for formality's sake. She doesn't want to induce suspicion on Darien's part.

   "How was your homework?" Darien asked Richelle with a huge smile on his face, like it is still the first time they met.

   "Yeah, that was great! I got an A. I think you should help me study on that subject so I'll have non-stop A's," Richelle jokingly said.

   'Okay, Serena. You're supposed to be a shadow when Richelle's around, r'member? You should keep remembering that and oh, not to forget that you're not supposed to be jealous. You don't own him right? You're just FRIENDS,' Serena groaned quietly as she realized that she's starting to talk to herself. 'I guess I have to face reality now or be hurt later.' That is Serena's defense mechanism working in her head once again. She kept on denying endlessly when in fact, something's blooming again in that heart of hers.

   "Hey, we're here," Serena finally made herself visible to the two "lovebirds". She already started to go down the bus, without looking back. She down't want to see that Darien has again decided to abandon her.

   On the contrary, Darien was actually behind her as she took off the bus--with Richelle. "Hey, I'm sure Haruka's gonna be happy to see you," she heard Darien said. By this time, the jerk has Richelle's things on top of Serena's.

   Luckily for Serena, they found Haruka in minutes. She thinks that she would get out of her mind if she would spend another minute with the two.

   "Haruka!" Serena actually threw herself around her friend, "nice to see you!"

   Haruka smirked, "Yeah, you should be. You're not taking time to see me anymore," she eyed Darien, "It's hurting to know that you exchanged me with him."

   "Man, that's unfair. You know she loves you!" Darien loves to make little punch lines like that, "Hey, by the way, Richelle's with us."

   Haruka waved at her, "Hi! Nice to see you again. How are you?"

  "I'm surviving, thanks. Darien here has volunteered to help with stuff."

   "Oh my God. Me? A simple person helping a student of class A? I can't believe this." Richelle has been a straight class A student while Darien has not been able to keep up most of the time. Darien is sure good and intelligent and all. He's just too naughty to keep up with class A conduct.

   "Aren't you going to ask me if how am I?" Serena jokingly pouted at Haruka.

   Haruka grinned as she patted Sere on the shoulder, "Don't worry, I'm sure you're okay having Darien around." Having said that, an elbow hit her smack-dabbed on her ribs, "Oww..."

  Pasting an innocent smile, Serena started, "Guys, I'm inviting you to watch our university's choir in concert. That would be on Friday night."

   "A concert? Who and why the heck would we watch there?" Darien injected.

   "Okay fine, if you don't want to support a friend then don't."

   "Hey that would be great! Can I come too?" Richelle asked.

   "Sure you can."

                                                * * *

At the concert...

   "I knew I should have thought better than coming alone," Haruka grunted to herself when they arrived at the concert. Everybody seems to have their special ones with them and the 'everybody' certainly didn't save Darien and Richelle. Haruka felt left out but then this is not really the major issue here. 'Darien and Richelle, Richelle and Darien... if someone sees this then that someone is sure to choke on her song.'

   The concert started on time and from then up to the last song, the concert went pretty well. Fortunately, nobody made a horrible appearance. They sang a few sentimental love songs and made some 'sappy' ones fine to the ears. The choir was fine, of course to Haruka, Serena has always been the best. Imagine Serena in a perfect choir concert without tripping around somebody else's skirt, that's what you call awesome!

   After the concert, the trio patiently waited for Serena to get dressed for a night out.

   "What do you think of the concert, you guys," Haruka nudged Darien out of concentration from Richelle's beauty.

    "Huh..."

    "Ei guys!" Serena bounced cheerfully, "How did you find the show?"

    "I didn't know that Serena could sing that well," Richelle replied.

    "There are so many people who can sing quite well, y'know..." Haruks chimed in and sure got a hit at the back from Serena. Richelle was (and probably still) a constant singing performer in school, everybody probably thought that the school trusts no one better than her. Surely, Serena has the voice, she doesn't realize it until now.

    Darien definitely saw that and quickly planned on diverting the topic when someone did it for him.

   "Serena!"

   "Seiya!"

   Darien sure have a bad feeling about this...