Disclaimer: See 1st chapter.

unsigneds violent sister: No, I didn't mean Mizuki.

*******Chapter Start*******

Monday dawned bright and early. Sakuno awoke from her slumber by her alarm clock ringing shrilly. Sakuno got up slowly, for she was not a morning person. Stumbling to her window, she pushed back the curtains, allowing the sun to shine cheerily in her room. Rubbing her eyes while yawning, Sakuno proceeded to shower.

When she changed into her new school uniform though, Sakuno stopped to admire the girl in her mirror. She looked nothing like Sakuno, but it was Sakuno. Her long auburn hair that was past the waist seemed to enhance the pale porcelain-like face. The amber eyes shined, but with what, Sakuno didn't know. Braiding her hair quickly, Sakuno clipped up a few stray strands of her hair. Smoothing out her uniform and failing miserably at tying the red silk fabric, Sakuno gave a short sigh.

She walked down the stairs quickly, wanting to find someone and ask how to tie it. She stopped short at the sight of Atobe. He was already dressed, and was busily talking on his cell phone. Without stopping his conversation at all, he motioned for Sakuno to go near and deftly tied the tie for her using his free hand. Waving his hand as a signal for her to start breakfast, Atobe wrapped up his conversation quickly with whoever it was on the phone.

Sakuno had already started to spear her prawn salad. Atobe sat down elegantly, whilst his mind skimmed through what he was going to do today. 'Have tennis practice, assign Shishido, Oshitari and Gakuto extra laps for what they did, bring Sakuno to class just in case she gets lost, practice the speech for the next carnival, go to class, go against Andou and Keiko's plans for the damned carnival, get back to class, have tennis practice, go home and rest.'

Breakfast was over pretty quickly, since Sakuno didn't really had the appetite and Atobe was thinking too much to really eat anyway. They started off, and they reached the school grounds with no interruptions. Sakuno was really puzzled though when Atobe told her to not go to class early, like she originally intended to.

"But why?"

Atobe sighed. She had listened to his request, accepted it, but she wasn't about to let it drop without asking the reason why. Atobe debated rather seriously with himself on whether to tell her the full truth or just let things slide. Thankfully, Oshitari and Gakuto had chosen this moment to come up and start talking/ complimenting Sakuno on how nice she looked in the Hyotei school uniform. Sakuno blushed, stuttering that she didn't look cute or anything. Oshitari disagreed totally with this.

The quartet made their way to the tennis courts, with Atobe disappearing to look for Sakaki-sensei first. Sakuno sat down at a grassy patch, and started reading her new English textbook. It was harder than Seigaku's. Sakuno groaned silently to herself, wondering how on earth she was going to be able to keep up. She wasn't too worried about the other subjects; she had always gotten marks above nineties in every subject except English. Sakuno gave up on trying to cram a bit more knowledge into her head within 30 minutes. English just never came to her. She sat up, hugging her legs to her chest, watching the students play.

Atobe was back, and Sakaki-sensei was with him as well. None of the players stopped, until Atobe called for them to gather. Sakuno watched, intrigued. Only when Atobe mentioned the Kantou tournaments did Sakuno remember that Hyotei would probably go up against Seigaku during one of their matches. After all, Hyotei had gotten fifth place – and into the Kantou tournament – after they lost to Fudomine in the quarter-finals. A short speech to motivate the students to work harder than ever, and with that, the school bell signaling that class was going to start in five minutes rang.

Sakuno got up, brushing her skirt for imaginary dust and picking up her bag. She was somewhat surprised when Atobe joined her.

"Keigo-nii? Don't you have your own classes to go?"

"Aa. But I have to go to the student council's room for a meeting first."

"Then shouldn't you go there now?"

"Keiko and Andou, the joint vice presidents said they were going to be late anyways. So I shall walk you to class first, since the student council's room is in that block as well. "

The note of utter finality in his voice stopped Sakuno from raising any further objections. The rest of the walk was held in complete silence. Telling her to be careful and leaving her at the door of her classroom, class 1-D, Atobe left. Sakuno gave a scared glance in his direction. She peered into the classroom through the window cautiously. The students in there were making quite a din, and no teacher was present. Sakuno jumped when she felt someone tapping her shoulder. She turned to see a young female teacher. The teacher had shoulder-length glossy, black hair. Her oval-shaped face was fitted with a pair of dark-green glasses that framed her warm golden-brown eyes. She had a nice smile, Sakuno noted.

"Are you Ryuuzaki-chan? Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm your homeroom, Maths and English teacher, Hanabusa Yuko. Call me Yuko-sensei. Wait outside here for a minute please, when I call you to come in, then come in."

Sakuno nodded, a bit relieved. Yuko-sensei seemed like a nice teacher. Hopefully she would give out extra coaching and such when asked. Sakuno didn't want to constantly bother Atobe about her homework.

She tried to press closer, listening to Yuko-sensei. The class was still considerably noisy, even though the noise level had gone down quite a bit.

"Class, I told you last week that you were going to have a new classmate right? Well, she's here today. I want you all to be nice to her, okay? Ryuuzaki-chan, please come in now."

Trembling, Sakuno pushed open the door, her head bowed down.

"Ryuuzaki-chan, come here and introduce yourself to your class."

"H-hai."

The class were already starting to chatter. Sakuno got snippets of the whispers among the students.

"Ryuuzaki? The name sounds familiar……."

"Isn't she the one that was with Atobe-sama on Saturday?"

"The one Hihara-senpai called a slut? Her? No way! She's so cute! Not to mention she's so shy."

"Maybe she looks shy, but is actually a whore?"

"How on earth can she keep braids that long?"

"Hmph. She had better not be after Atobe-sama! I won't let her!"

Yuko-sensei was smiling, but it had an unnatural look. Sakuno shivered. Yuko-sensei's smile looked a lot like Fuji-senpai's when he was mad. The sadistic aura was definitely there as well.

"Class? I believe you should be quiet when the teacher is standing in front. Also, none of you want to make a bad impression on Ryuuzaki-chan, now do you?"

"HAI!"

The panic was evident. Yuko-sensei, though, was smiling happily and the sadistic aura was already gone. She turned to Sakuno, motioning her to introduce herself.

Sakuno did a 90 degree bow, before introducing herself.

"Ohayou gozaimasu! Watashi wa Ryuuzaki Sakuno desu. Douzo yoroshiku."

"Okay, Sakuno. Sit there, the corner desk. I'm sure you know that you will have to do a test first, so that the teachers will know how far along and how good you are in your studies. Do your best."

"Hai."

Sakuno started to walk somewhat quickly to her desk, wanting to avoid the curious glances thrown in her direction. And she tripped over her own feet in her haste. Flushing when her new classmates started laughing.

"I doubt she'd be the sort of girl that Atobe-sama would like. How clumsy!"

The snide remark hurt Sakuno. It wasn't the first time someone directed an insult at her; she had plenty of insults thrown at her when she was in Seishun, mainly because she was friends with Ryoma. There were even times when groups of girls would gang up against her. But normally Tomo-chan or someone else would find her and save her then. 'I'm at a new school now. Not to mention I'm going to be thirteen next year. I can't expect Tomo-chan or anyone else to always save me. I should stand on my own two feet.'

Holding up her head, Sakuno continued to walk towards her seat, the whole time chanting in her mind 'I will not let these petty insults hurt me. I will not let these petty insults hurt me.' The students resumed what they were doing. She sat down at her appointed desk, just wondering why on earth did she agree to her parents request. Watching everyone around her talking, chatting so care freely only made her miss Tomoka, Ryoma and her other friends from Seigaku even more.

Sakuno got out her sketchbook. Turning to the window, she started drawing. Everything else seemed to fade. She always got this feeling whenever she started drawing. And she always wondered if Ryoma and senpai-tachi felt the same way whenever they played tennis.

"That's a nice sketch you got there!"

Sakuno snapped out of her reverie. Glancing up, she stared at the speaker. Two girls were standing in front of her. One of them had waist-length black hair, the other short dark blue hair. The long-haired one was grinning. The other was inspecting her critically.

"Gomen. Did I interrupt you? But I really haven't seen anybody sketch so beautifully before. You should join the art club!"

"Hm, you should join the art competition. But there will be tough competitors. But anyway, what we wanted to ask was, is it true?"

Sakuno was speechless. Two people had just casually walked over and complimented her sketch, and then asked a question that Sakuno didn't even know. The short-haired girl was looking at her up and down. The black-haired girl was smiling. The short-haired girl elbowed the other in the stomach then said.

"Sorry. We didn't introduce ourselves. I'm Imai Ami, and this dolt is my best friend, Hino Kiseki. But is it true?"

"Is what true?"

"Is it true that you were with Atobe-sama on Saturday?"

"H-hai. He offered to show me around the school."

Kiseki let out a low whistle. "God, you must have a lot of guts. If anybody from the Atobe-sama fan club finds out about this, you can practically die." Sakuno spoke up miserably at this. "A lot of them already know anyway. I'm just waiting to be maimed."

"Hmph. Well, Misaki's definitely going to give you a hard time. She's the first year representative of the Atobe Keigo fanclub. And, she's in our class."

"Anou……I thought almost all of the girls in Hyotei were Atobe-senpai's fans?"

Ami gave a small snort.

"Not all of us are, you know. The reason you see so many students in matches that are past the states is because the school ultimately presses on 'unity'. But anybody who's been in the campus wouldn't believe it. Girls get into catfights and screaming matches every time when it's clubs and society's. Personally, I think Ohtori-senpai would be a better choice, ten times over."

Kiseki gave a small laugh.

"She's more of an Ohtori fan girl than an Atobe fan girl, Sakuno-chan."

"But still, you better be on your guard. If any of those Atobe fan girls who saw you on Saturday recognize you, you're life here will be - "

The shrill ringing of the bell cut off Kiseki's next words. Kiseki and Ami hurried back to their seats, which were conveniently next to each other and a couple of rows down from Sakuno's seat. Yuko-sensei glided down to her seat, handing her a sheaf of papers. Explaining briefly about the test she had to take to determine her level, Yuko told Sakuno that she will also have to sit for tests for the rest of the subjects. The time limit was until the end of the lesson.

After giving a "Good luck!" to Sakuno, Yuko-sensei happily skipped to the front of the class. The Maths lesson started, and Sakuno bent her head down to answer the questions.

"Name the circumference of a circle."

And so on. Sakuno diligently answered each and every one of the tests before break. Ami and Kiseki caught up with her again. Sakuno was really surprised. She never had many friends, and those that weren't so good friends like Tomoka and Ann barely talked to her at all. She couldn't blame them. She attracted trouble like a magnet, and nobody liked trouble.

"Come on, Sakuno! The cafeteria's selling spaghetti today, and I love it! I won't forgive you if it's sold out by the time we get down!"

SMACK!

"You moron! Is food more important than friendship? I don't even know why I befriended you in the first place! Sakuno's new, remember? She doesn't know the school as well as we do!"

Ami was giving a long lecture to Kiseki about being nice and polite. Sakuno was hit by nostalgia. It was so like Oishi-senpai telling Momo-senpai and Eiji-senpai to not scarf their food down so quickly or else they were going to be sick. By the time Sakuno reached the cafeteria, there were already a crowd of people. The three of them sat down an empty table first, before Kiseki moved off to buy her food. Sakuno and Ami had brought bentos with them. Kiseki brought back a plate of spaghetti and was about to dig in when a loud shriek was heard.

"Atobe-sama!"

Heads turned immediately. Sakuno turned as well. Atobe, Oshitari and the other members of the student council were walking down the stairs in a group. As expected, Atobe was standing in front. Most of the girls and some of the guys in the cafeteria rushed to hm. With a snap of his fingers, the crowds parted, forming two lines. Sakuno stopped staring when she felt somebody poke her. She turned questioningly and noticed that both Ami and Kiseki were standing.

"Sakuno" Kiseki hissed. "Stand!" Sakuno stood up abruptly. Looking around, she saw that everyone was standing, and their attention was fixed onto the student council. The students all made way for the members of the student council whenever they walked. Even the students that were buying food had all stopped and were staring at the student council members as well.

The student council members sat down at the largest table in the middle of the cafeteria. Only when they sat down did the rest of the students sit down as well. Needless to say, Sakuno was speechless. She was pretty sure nothing like this went on in other schools. Kiseki was grinning at Sakuno's surprised face.

"Don't worry, things are like this at Hyotei. Whether in middle school, high school or university, the student council members are the most respected students in the entire school. All those students that are not seniors have to stand whenever they come in, and only resume sitting when they sit. It's compulsory."

Sakuno nodded, sipping her drink as she did so. "Wow…… Seigaku's nothing like this."

"No school is anything like this, Sakuno-chan."

"Oshitari-senpai!"

Said person gave a lovely smirk, making the girls around the three freshmen swoon at him or glare at them. With a gesture that mirrored, "May I?" Oshitari pulled up a chair, sitting in between Sakuno and Kiseki.

"Senpai, why are you - " "Here?" Oshitari cut off Ami's words. "Actually, I wanted to ask Sakuno-chan for help in a matter. It's only going to take a few seconds, so will you?"

"Anou……."

"It isn't going to take much, just 10 seconds or so. Onegai?"

Suspicion, on Ami's part at least was up. Narrowing her eyes ever so slightly, Ami wondered aloud. "Why?" "We just need to ask Sakuno-chan's opinion on something." "Is it anything perverted, senpai?" Oshitari gave a short sigh. "Of course not. I have no intention of ever scarring Sakuno-chan here, seeing as she's a friend of yours. I would have to spend the rest of my life on another planet. So will you let me borrow her for a minute?" Ami was considering it. Her frown indicated that she still didn't trust Oshitari completely. "Please?"

Ami relented. Sakuno was dragged off (for lack of a better word) by Oshitari to the student council's table. Atobe was sitting at the head of it, and was considerably calm talking with a couple of students, seniors, presumably. Everybody sitting at the table glanced up. Out of reflex Sakuno took a step back, bumping straight into Oshitari. Stammering out an apology that Oshitari waved off almost before it was even out, Sakuno continued to stand.

"You know you're all scaring her?"

Glares were shot at him. Atobe scoffed, putting down his coffee on the table. "Well? What do you think?"

'Wait a minute, what the heck is going on here? I thought Oshitari-senpai said the student council needed to ask my opinion on something?'

"She definitely looks the part. The drama club did say they want someone with long hair and big eyes." A short, dark blue-haired girl said.

"NANI?!!"

Atobe raised an elegant eyebrow. "I thought you told her?" Oshitari responded with a smirk. "If I told her the real thing, she wouldn't even want to come here and would start making excuses that someone else would be better suited as the role. Nevertheless, her outburst is still somewhat surprising."

"But really, she does fit the role. What's your name again?" The black-haired girl asked. Oshitari was the one who supplied the answer, since Sakuno was still somewhat overcome with the shock.

"Ryuuzaki Sakuno."

"Ryuuzaki-chan, the drama club really would appreciate it if you joined. They've always been short of people. And this time, you'd really fit the role of the main character of their play. So how about it?"

"But -"

"OKAY! It's settled!! Ryuuzaki-chan will be the star in our next play!!"

"But I didn't -"

"Save your breath, Ryuuzaki-chan. Yahiro won't listen to anyone in this state. It's as if he goes temporarily deaf whenever one problem that's been a major headache for weeks is solved. I'm Tsukimori Rin, by the way."

Sakuno bowed her head slightly. Wondering if most of the Hyotei students were always so sure of themselves and barely listened to others, Sakuno half-heartedly listened to the arguments made by the student council. The distant bell ringing broke up their argument, and Sakuno scurried off to class, thankful to finally be able to escape the scrutinizing glares of several members of the student body.

The lessons before lunch passed by uneventfully for Sakuno, save for the numerous glances sent her way all the while during class. To say that Sakuno was thankful that lunch was here would be an understatement. The glances were not mere glances, just so you know. The jealousy and anger within those 'glances' was quite evident, even to Sakuno, who was more often than not a bit oblivious to her surroundings.

Not wishing to disturb Ami and Kiseki who were both chatting away with other friends at a table, Sakuno wandered outside the cafeteria and into the school grounds, staying close for fear of losing her way again. Walking around, Sakuno sat down at a shady cherry blossom tree. Opening her bento, Sakuno took her time eating it. The gentle breeze was calming. Sakuno closed her eyes peacefully, when she heard a gentle snoring somewhere near her. Standing up and going around the tree, she wasn't surprised to find Jirou there. From the looks of it, he seemed to be having quite a nice dream as well. What Sakuno didn't suspect at all, was that Jirou would be able to somehow grab her and pull her down on the ground. Cuddling up against her wasn't expected as well. Sakuno tried to wriggle out, but Jirou's grip on her hand was strong.

Sakuno lightly shook Jirou's shoulder, only to have him cuddling closer to her even more. Needless to say she was uncomfortable with the close proximity. Blushing, Sakuno even caught Jirou mumbling something like 'pillow-chan'.

'Mou, what should I do now? I don't think Jirou-senpai is going to wake up soon. Even though I finished lunch already, I don't want to have to face Jirou-senpai's fangirls. Keigo-nii's fangirls are already bad enough.'

"Sakuno-chan?"

Sakuno looked up, relieved to find a familiar face staring at her. Ohtori Choutarou was gazing down at her, his gray eyes full of confusion. The sight of Jirou-senpai holding her hand in his sleep must be quite strange after all.

"Senpai, can you help? I've tried, but Jirou-senpai just won't wake up."

Choutarou nodded, breathed in, and plugging his ears before whispering something in Jirou's ear.

A pause.

"SUGEE! MARUI-SAMA IS HERE? WHERE IS HE? WHERE? WHERE?! CHOUTA-KUN, TELL ME!~"

Jirou had finally let go of Sakuno's hand, but was now hovering and shrieking at poor Choutarou, who had resorted to the 'last but 100% guranteed to work attempt at making Jirou wake up' way. Bluff to him that Marui is somewhere around.

"Jirou-senpai!"

"SA-CHAN! TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME!! WHERE HAVE YOU SEEN MARUI-SAMA??"

"Jirou-senpai, Marui-san isn't here at all."

Choutarou was tiredly rubbing his ears, attempting to soothe them. Jirou's fan-girly shirek was still pounding in them and his head. "I just said that because you were grasping Sakuno-chan's hand rather tightly in your sleep. She couldn't wake you up. And you weren't about to let go."

Jirou quitened down, apologizing repeatedly to Sakuno. When the ruckus was just about to end, another shout came about.

"Oi, Jirou! Why were you screaming so loudly about Marui? He isn't even here!"

A certain doubles player with short cropped hair was sauntering along to where the trio was currently standing. "Yo!"

"Shishido!" "Shishido-san!" "Shishido-senpai!"

Shishido blinked. He wasn't used to hearing three people calling him at the same time, and all with different names as well. "Well? Why did you shriek for Marui? It was so loud that all the students were looking around. Even Atobe looked around, wondering if Rikkai was here."

Jirou gave a pout. "I can't help it if I get excited whenever I hear that Marui-sama is here, okay? I mean, he is my idol after all……."

Shishido gave a dejected shake of his head. "Your over enthusiasm will make him run away from you sooner or later one day. And I don't get what you like about his tennis moves, they're not that big a deal. Even that Kikumaru's moves are more eye-catching than his."

Jirou playfully stuck out his tongue. "You won't understand 'cause you're you, Shishi-kun." Shishido gave a twitch. "I'm happy being me."

At that moment, the bell rang. They scattered quickly, not wanting to be late for class. Luckily for Sakuno, since most of the students were always occupied during lunch, so no one saw her and the tennis regulars. Music class was up next. The music class in Hyotei was different from other schools, as it was joined together by two classes to make one class. Different forms were joined together for this. It was a part of the school's belief that students should be more joined together as a team.

Sakuno joined Ami and Kiseki after gathering her books. They briefly explained the joined classes to her, and it was not long before they were ushered in by a short, rather portly teacher who introduced himself to Sakuno as Monsiuer Sauniere. Sakuno almost cried out in surprise when she saw a mushroom-haired martial artist slash tennis player among the group of sophomores that her class were having music with. But what made her flabbergasted was that Monsiuer Sauniere placed her directly in front of Hiyoshi. Sakuno cursed her bad luck under her breath with all the swear words she learnt from Tomo-chan and Ann-chan. It wasn't that she didn't like Hiyoshi-senpai, but she was quite sure that very few of the female population would ever like her now. At least at Seigaku the senpais' didn't mind her a lot, as she had her eyes set on Ryoma-kun.

When the students started singing "Kokiriko-Bushi", Sakuno was startled to hear Hiyoshi's singing voice. She had overheard Shishido and Gakuo jeer at Hiyoshi's singing, she discarded it as a joke, even when Hiyoshi had flushed slightly. Hiyoshi was actually quite a good singer. This led her to wonder why her senpais would make fun of Hiyoshi-senpai's singing ability. Ignoring it as a guy thing, Sakuno continued enjoying her music lesson, singing as loudly as she dared, forgetting all her troubles for the moment.

After the music lesson, Sakuno once again joined Ami and Kiseki. She didn't miss the glare the red-headed Misaki sent her way though. The glare itself had sent chills down Sakuno's spine. It seemed otherwordly, somehow or other. 'Mou, I know she's Keigo-nii's fangirl, but is there really any need to hate me that much just because Keigo-nii showed me around the school? I've already got more enemies than I had in Seigaku and it's only the first day of school here!'

"Sakuno-chan, what are you thinking about? You should honestly stop spacing out so much, you know! One day you're going to end up in an accident because of it."

"Iie. I wasn't thinking of anything much. Just thinking what sort of club I'd join here."

Ami interjected. "Join the art club! You obviously have talent, and Himura-sensei, even though she's a grouch and not many students or staff like her, she is a good teacher. She'll bring out your talent to it's full potential. What's more, I'm in that club as well. You'll have a friend there. But you'll have to wait for a week since you still have to take all those exams."

"Anou, isn't it a bit unusual that a student arrives in Hyotei when it's already been about a month since school started?"

Kiseki shook her head. "Not really. A lot of the students here go overseas often during the holidays, and some miss entire semesters. That's why Hyotei always have students who just entered or returned to the school to take exams. That way, if the student is too advanced or is unable to keep up with the work, they'll be upgraded or degraded according to their standard. But you don't need to worry, since you've been studying in Seigaku. Seigaku's level is almost like ours, except that our level of English is much higher. Ah, I forgot. If a student is weak in one subject, that student will be sent to remedial class."

Sakuno groaned inwardly. Her English marks at Seigaku had only been a "B", and she hadn't even taken the English exam here at Hyotei yet. All she could hope for was that she wouldn't need to take those remedial classes. It would seriously cut into her free time, and she'd have to rearrange all her tuition classes as well as violin lessons around it as well. All she could do now was hope that she's do well on it.

English came immediately after Music, Yuko-sensei was already in class by the time the students returned. Sakuno tentatively waited for Yuko-sensei to give her the papers.

"Choose or right out the best answer for all of the forty questions listed here.

1. Daniel was _____ by the principal for accidentally breaking a glass window.

'Mou, what am I going to do? I don't even understand two of the words here, and this is only the first question!'

Tension and frustration mounted high for Sakuno, as she was barely able to understand more than half of the questions on her test. She thanked kami-sama that English was the last period; she honestly needed some rest after taking all those exams. Perhaps drawing would help, since she had to wait for Keigo-nii, she might as well sketch the school. It might help her in remembering the corridors to her various classes so that she wouldn't need other people's help to get to class. Sakuno walked around, settling down behind a hedge that gave her a clear view of the west side of the school grounds. A gasp fell from her lips. She couldn't believe it. She had just seen......

A/N: Dandandandan! What or who did Sakuno just see? Winners will get……….A big virtual cookie! Yay!